


Sands of Time

by PikaPixie



Series: Timeline of Forever [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Consensual Underage Sex, Depression, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Inspirational Speeches, Mild Gore, Teen Pregnancy, Temporary Character Death, forgot that one too, im bad at smut, its really short, not explicit, oh yeah swearing, should've mentioned that from the first install
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 16:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 303,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6618655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaPixie/pseuds/PikaPixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then she realized- that her mother had never hugged her, never comforted her before. The only one that had ever been there when she needed it, or even that was able to figure out when she needed comforting, the only shoulder she'd ever cried on belonged to- Gaara. And now Gaara was gone. Sequel to BLAEE</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Peace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This stuff makes so much more sense with formatting. The in-betweens are meant to be in the middle of the page as well as italicized.

~"Fumiko, what is your nindo?"~

...

Konoha was incredibly boring.

Kiba was out on a mission, Shikamaru refused- refused- to teach her Go or Shogi- something about how she'd broken all his other boards and pieces and he needed to get new ones and Seal them to keep her away- that jerk. Naruto was out training with Jiraiya, and nobody else here was even remotely interesting except for maybe Lee, but...

Lee was weird. Taijutsu expert? Yes. Good sparring partner? Hell yes. Somebody she wanted to have within eardrum-shattering distance without one of them trying to punch the other? Uh, no, thanks. She loved being able to hear things.

All there was around here to look at was trees and snails and random little animals like rabbits and admittedly very cute little deer around Shikamaru's house, not to mention dirt and leaves and miscellaneous people and leaves and trees and interesting hyuuga eyes and flowers and leaves and Temari because that's who they were supposed to look at and frogs and leaves and there were leaves in her hair and leaves in her bag and leaves in her shoes every time she took them off.

"Hey, Mai, aren't you hungry?" Eishi asked boredly from his spot beside her on a tree branch, poking a branch at a mushroom growing on the bark at his feet with a dulled curiosity. Mai couldn't really muster the energy needed to push him off to see how high his scream still was.

"Nope." she said instead.

"But, Mai-chan, you haven't eaten all day." Shiragiku said, digging through a bag he always kept slung over his shoulder that he randomly pulled various flowers and/or fruits from. Mai had already learned not to steal snacks from that bag. Instead of chewing on a regular apple, she'd ended up paralyzed for a day and a half, then threw the whole thing back up after her muscles finally detracted.

He held out what might have been a grapefruit. Mai liked grapefruit. She found it unnerving how her teammate- she didn't even remember his name sometimes- seemed to already know everything about her and Eishi. Mai held up a hand. "Not from your bag."

"It was your fault for digging through his bag without asking him what wasn't poisoned."

"Shut up."

"Suna is supposed to be full of people who know about poison."

"Do you really want me to push you into the raccoon poop? Because I will."

"You don't have to eat it if you don't want to," Shiragiku said in his quiet, irritatingly soothing voice that sounded like bell chimes and the steady hhhshhhh noise that came from training for three months under the water towers. "I just know that eventually you'll start to feel unwanted symptoms of starvation and dehydration."

"Is it a grapefruit?"

"Yes."

"Is it just a grapefruit?"

"No."

Mai considered this. "Will it kill me, paralyze me, make me puke, or give me diarrhea?"

"No."

She shrugged. "Okay, fine. Ooh, hey, look, Temari's blushing again." Mai said, snatching the proffered fruit from her teammate's hand and taking a chunk out of it, then pointing with it. Purple juice dribbled from her fingers. Three months of absolute death in Heaven forced her to instinctively catch the droplets on her foot to avoid detection.

They were hovering about Temari as she went about her daily business at Konoha. Technically Shikamaru was her guide, but technically Shikamaru didn't know they were there. Or, actually he probably had sensed at least Eishi by now and was just too lazy to really care.

Their sensei Otokaze was gone already. He had said something about taking in the scenes of Konoha. It wasn't like anything was going to happen. It wasn't like anything had happened at all in the past week and a half they had been here. Konoha was full of lazy sons of bitches, and it didn't seem like anybody here cared enough to stir up trouble.

Mai was regretting this particular C-rank. The only reason she was doing it was for credits to qualify for the very near-coming Chuunin exams. Just because she was ANBU didn't mean she wasn't going to make at least Tokubetsu Jonin rank. Actually, no, at least all around Jonin rank. Jonin level ANBU assassin, that was acceptable.

Maybe with a little trio of Gaki-students one day, too...

Eishi snickered and in a moment of unexpected companionship, nudged her arm with his elbow. "Did you see that? Shikamaru just tried to kiss her!"

"Liar! No way!" But still Mai peeked back down, taking another bite of grapefruit, snickering silently when she noticed Shikamaru's irritated expression, close enough to Temari to poke her in the back. Temari had bent over to look over-at what looked like exactly the wrong time- something weird looking- a venus flytrap. Mai hadn't seen one before. "Oh Kami!"

Eishi shifted his crouch for a better look, readjusting the fan on his back and hefting it up.

Mai wasn't really sure what to think of Eishi.

He was an ass, a jerk, a follower that said scathing words rehearsed with all his buddies, a bully that had used his physical strength to intimidate a little five year old girl half his size until they were both seven and Mai learned how to punch people in the face. Then he had seemed to realize, oh shit this girl is fucking scary and tried to leave her alone, but he'd been blacklisted.

And now, after almost five years of bitter, violent, overly excessive, colorful rivalry, they were...

... teammates.

Which sucked majorly. But there were moments like this, where Eishi seemed almost friendly, almost like he didn't remember that two days before the Genin initiation ceremony when she'd filled his body wash with plant fibers from Fumiko's supply store and turned him bright green until he'd gone meekly to Lady Chiyo to get his skin turned back to champagne tan.

It confused her but also she didn't really care, as long as he wasn't screwing with her or her family any more. Mai took another bite of grapefruit. Temari straightened and clocked Shikamaru in the face with the butt of her fan, then flushed when she realized she'd knocked him over and hurried to help him back up.

Oh, she was so getting a picture of his black eye later.

...

~ "My... nindo?"~

...

Fumiko had to say that the balcony was one of her favorite places.

It was wide and spacious, set so that the buildings blended with the crags and hulking stones of sanded rock and it was hard to tell one from the other. It was built near the outskirts of the village, where the rocks ringed the inner parts of the walls, a totally illogical place that was absolutely silent except for the hissing breaths of hot breezes.

Here, higher in the air, almost level with the tops of mini-thin mountains and craggy houses but still several feet below them, the sand was thick in the air so that she could feel it on her skin when she moved. Her eyes were no longer bothered by it. It made the sky seem warm, her lungs dry and hollowed out, like she had room still for more hearts, more feelings, more thoughts.

Gaara was with her too, and they were both lounging at the edge, Gaara ramrod-straight like he always was, but his eyes were relaxed and his hands loose at his side; Fumiko herself was leaning with her elbows on the metal railing, and they were both gazing off into the dancing air.

It wasn't often they came out here; usually there were patrollers about, or they just plain didn't have any time. But there was a meeting planned today, and for some reason, all of Gaara's other duties had been suspended for the day, despite the fact that the meeting was only supposed to last an hour or so.

But this was a great thing with great timing, because tomorrow was Saturday, Gaara's day off. And boy did they have things planned- a full day of fun and play, ice cream, movies, wandering around the village, walking through the desert, making sand castles, playing catch with a ball, and after all of that? Whatever else they could think of.

Fumiko was now the only one that could fit on their swings, and even then she was really getting too big. Fumiko was four foot ten, more or less, and about as thin as was healthy. Gaara was at least six inches taller than her, five four, maybe five-five, and he was more solid than he had used to be, with broader shoulders and a thicker torso. He was still skinny as well, but no longer twiggish like herself.

Usually Gaara just liked to watch her swing, anyway, and admitted it was like watching a bird trying to take flight, which Fumiko always thought was hilarious, and said she was like a bat.

Fumiko preened with the sun beating down on her shoulders and face and seeped into her hair, warming her back, and her hands were hot under her elbows which were also hot, and a little red too from exposure to the whipping sandy breezes. She tilted her head up slightly and leaned back with her feet on the rail so that her chin rested on her arms.

"The sun is like a big blanket," she said.

"Is it?"

"Yeah."

"How so?" Now Gaara squinted up at the sky, where lazy, dying wisps of clouds tried to travel before disintegrating halfway across.

"It makes everything warm," Fumiko said thoughtfully, staring directly at it until it turned less yellow and more black, the sun a sunspot in her vision, ironically enough. "And it makes everything a different color, like it's covering us." She paused, Gaara said nothing. "Like a big, big blanket that covers the whole entire world. So it's like... We're all having a stayover under a blanket fort!"

With this realization Fumiko grinned, lifted her head and looked back at her friend, who looked back at her almost quizzically but accepting, smiling slightly and shaking his head minutely.

Footsteps sounded nearby, harsh against the sand-filled floor. Fumiko looked a little farther than Gaara's black-ringed cerulean blue eyes and saw Baki, in his cloak that didn't ripple as much as hers because it was more like a cloak than hers, which was kinda like a cape and whipped away from her, while his just shifted like water; like Gaara's robes.

Baki knelt. "Kazekage-sama," he said. "The meeting is about to begin."

"Hi, Baki," Fumiko said, then pointed to the sky. "Did you ever think the sun is like a blanket?"

Baki spared her an almost confused glance, and then looked back to Gaara. He wasn't being rude, Fumiko knew, he just wasn't a very outside the box thinker; Baki preferred the rules over weird things. Plus, he was being professional.

Gaara's eyes slid back. Gaara of course didn't have three hundred and sixty degree vision, he couldn't actually see Baki standing there looking up at the sun like he was seriously considering Fumiko's blanket theory, it was just a habit he had. Gaara sensed Baki.

"Very well," he said. "I'll see you later, alright, Fumiko?"

Fumiko puffed out a breath of laughter. "Okay, Gaa-ra."

Gaara slinked off like a ninja with Baki, seeming to somehow dissolve into their surroundings despite their bright white clothes. Fumiko was left alone on the balcony, sand crunching between her teeth, hair and cloak swirling out to the side, head tilting curiously back up at the sun in the sudden silence.

"Just like a blanket..."

...

~"Your ninja way. Or, I suppose in your case, your way of life."~

...

After Gaara's appointment to Kazekage, Kankuro had thrown himself into the task of weeding out potential backstabbers, traitors, and idiots. Now there were not only more people included in every Head meeting, but those added were younger as well. Technically many of them had already previously been considered advisors, but hadn't made it into being included in any of the current Head meetings until now, give that they had been the Fourth's advisors.

This place, the Head room, was actually called the 'Kazekage's office'. This was due to the row of five stone statues that were just a little bit unsettling; the figures and faces and probing eyes of all of Sunagakure's Kages- even himself- stared at them accusingly. All five of them were carved in regal positions, features made sharper by the trails of sunlight that filtered in through the many small round windows dotting the single round, unbroken wall.

"Over the last few years, our village has enjoyed stability and prosperity, largely due to our dealings with the hidden villages of the Allied lands." Baki flipped a page over the top of his clipboard and glanced up and the round circle of them sitting at their table. "To give a few examples of this... our recruits are better trained, thanks to new training methods. Methods learned from the Leaf village."

Joseki frowned almost imperceptibly, mouth thinning into a straight line. "We'll see how much better they are," he said, raising a hand to hover by his face, as though he was planning to rest his chin on the back of his hand. "The Chuunin exams are almost upon us."

"Correct," Yura said, leaning forward on his elbows. "And that's why these nasty rumors are especially troubling right now."

"Rumors, Yura?"

"Yes, sir," Yura said calmly, looking Baki hard in the face impassively. It was easy for him to look impassive with his hair covering almost half of his face. Gaara looked at him, curious himself. Rumors? "Have you ever heard of a group called the Akatsuki?"

Akatsuki. The name sounded vaguely familiar, like the lyrics of an old song he hadn't heard in a year or two. Gaara blinked slowly, trying to recall the thought once more, but it was useless. Whoever the Akatsuki were, they couldn't be too dangerous... they hadn't stirred any noticeable trouble.

"The Akatsuki is a mysterious organization comprised of a dozen or so shinobi. Every one of it's members is listed in the bingo books as ruthless S-ranked criminals. Of those who have been identified, one is Uchiha Itachi of the village hidden in the leaves, a man who annihilated his own clan in a single night. Another is Hoshigaki Kisame, one of the seven ninja swordsmen, the phantom of the mist village. Then there's Orochimaru, the assassin of our late Kazekage, and who came so close to destroying the Leaf. It is said that even he, too, was once a member. "

Gaara's own father had been killed by Orochimaru, as well as Konoha's previous Hokage.

If they were all that powerful... Gaara frowned, an undetectable pressing of his lips. He remained silent, choosing to watch and to listen instead of speak.

"I see," Baki said at last, twining his fingers together. "Yes, I've heard something of this myself recently. So..." Baki said, almost to himself, hands tightening. "They're finally making their move."

"We have this information from one of the legendary Sannin," Yura continued. "Master Jiraiya himself."

Gaara glanced quickly in his direction.

Naruto?

"So, before this meeting was convened, I took the liberty of ordering the village to be secured." Yura nodded to himself. "And I've stationed ANBU Black Ops at key points on the perimeter. No matter how clever these shinobi may be, if they hope to take us by surprise, they're mistaken. We've heard that they often wear distinctive black cloaks emblazoned with red clouds. If our lookouts spot such a cloak, they've been ordered by me to attack at once."

There was murmuring throughout the room as this was taken in, turned around and analyzed. It was good initiative on his advisor's part to protect against any pending attacks on the village... but Gaara couldn't help but wonder why. Why had Jiraiya the Toad Sage, training with Naruto, taken the time to warn Suna of such a group?

What did they have to do with Suna? As Baki had mentioned, they had been through a very recent cloud of peace, but they weren't exactly a rich Hidden Village, nor- unfortunately but also unavoidably- were they a very powerful one. So what about this village hidden in the sand have that caught the attention of a group of criminals like Orochimaru?

Gaara was getting a very, very bad feeling about this. His former musings that Akatsuki wouldn't be much of a noticeable threat evaporated like water.

"Very well, then." Baki dipped his head. "This meeting is adjourned."

As the other Heads rose to make their exit, Gaara leaned back in his wide, curving, really hard and uncomfortable chair, arms crossed, thinking.

...

~"Oh! Hinata and Uzumaki Naruto have the same nindo! I remember that now. What's yours?"~

...

Satomi materialized into almost complete darkness.

The inside of the cave was partially submerged in the river outside, giving off a damp chill. Satomi sneezed, rubbing her nose with one hand and glancing around, wondering for a moment if Deidara had seriously meant to lead her here.

Always with the dank dark caves, she thought irritability.

Deidara had found her wandering not too far from this particular area watching fish swim down a river from the trees, claiming that the Akatsuki requested her assistance immediately. He'd brought her farther down the river, maybe a mile or so, to this cave.

Satomi started slightly, startled, when the staticky, multicolored image of Pein shimmered to life in front of her. Automatically she started to reach out to summon her sword, then paused at the familiar voice.

"We require your assistance," he said plainly.

"You are going to need to be a slight bit more specific, Leader-sama." Satomi drawled out, blinking slowly. She lowered her sword arm. "And that is new."

"You are aware that we have been collecting the nine tailed beasts," Pein said. "Now we are pursuing the One-tails-"

"You mean Shukaku."

"... Yes."

"All right. So what do you need assistance with?"

"A few things. First of all, as you might have noticed, none of us Akatsuki members are physically here, aside from Deidara and Sasori, who will be heading out shortly to obtain Shukaku."

"So, you are saying you need me to fortify the area, if I assume correctly?"

"Indeed. As well as sealing this cave against all but the members of Akatsuki's chakras, we would like your assistance in actually locating the jinchuuriki of the One-tails Shukaku, using your teleportation jutsu."

"Not a problem. But I would require some more information on the jinchuuriki and their location, as well as any allies that may try to stop us."

Pein's illusion jutsu nodded. "This particular jinchuuriki resides in Sunagakure. Sasori would know more of him from his sleeper agents."

Sasori melted seemingly from the darkened shadow of the cave. He was wearing one of his more offensive puppets now in preparation of the coming fight. "The jinchuuriki of Suna fights with sand."

"Well that would be a given, since he does host Shukaku. I was referring more to what he looks like," Satomi said in a slightly sharper tone.

"He is the only citizen of Suna, shinobi or no, with red hair." Sasori answered, unruffled. "He often wears a gourd of sand on his back for a jutsu known as the Ultimate Defense."

"Understood." Satomi thought for a moment. "Now, what about his allies? Is there anyone in particular that I should look out for?"

There was a splash behind her as Deidara finally caught up to them, stepping across the water to the solid part of the cave. He stepped up onto hard rock and sighed loudly. He must have heard her, because he picked up where Sasori left off. "The jinchuuriki supposedly has a couple of siblings and a lover, hmph. One is a puppet master of sorts. The other uses tessenjutsu. His girlfriend shouldn't be much trouble to you, though, hmph. She's supposed to be some kind of crippled artist, not that I've seem any of her work."

Cripple... Satomi thought. Artist...

Kami damn it.

"Would..." Satomi said, then hesitated. "Would the jinchuuriki... Happen to be the Kazekage as well?"

"I believe so, yes," Sasori said, shooting Deidara an irritated glare for interrupting. "Why?"

"Well... I... did go there once," Satomi said quickly. "And I did run into the Kazekage. Who has red hair. I thought his chakra felt off."

Satomi's mind was whirling. The crippled artist girl with brown hair and brown eyes and chocolate chip cookies, Fumiko, had spoken of her best friend- Gaara, the Fifth Kazekage. Satomi wanted to clench her fists and break something, but she managed to keep her facial expression carefully checked into a neutral position.

This is just my luck, Satomi thought angrily. I finally make a friend, and now I have to kill her boyfriend. She was such a sweet girl, too...

Satomi knew that innocence such as hers wouldn't last very long. She knew that Fumiko's friendliness and easy attachment to others would either get her killed or broken someday.

She just hadn't thought she would be the one to have to shatter it.

...

~"To be a splendid ninja, even without the use of Genjutsu or ninjutsu! That is my ninja way!"~

...

Fumiko leaned back on his empty desk with her elbows. "But you got retired for the day."

"I know," Gaara said, "And I apologize."

"Hum... it's fine. I have to finish my staff anyway."

Gaara flinched. "I'm sorry-"

"Ne, ne, really, Gaara, it's fine." Fumiko laughed, looking up and craning her neck so that the top of her head touched his desk and she was looking at her boyfriend upside-down. Her hair slid across the wood, shuffling papers. "I'm not mad. And we can always hang out tomorrow."

"You're upset," he muttered.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"Nuh-uh. Am not. Maybe I'm a little disappointed, but I don't smile when I'm upset." Fumiko took her elbows off the desk, lying on it completely, and poked her cheeks at the corners. "Seeee?"

"... Are you sure?"

"Yup. I'll see you tonight, though, yeah?"

"Yes. I'll... be home."

Fumiko flipped back around so that she was upright, hands on his desk, then grinned and leaned closer, nuzzling his nose with hers before he could react or pull away. "Okay."

"Okay," he murmured back, flushing but smiling hesitantly. "I swear I'll be back home on time. Early, even."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Yay." Fumiko straightened. "Promise, promise. You sure you don't want help?"

"No... you can go work if you want to."

"Alright, Gaara." She smiled again. "I'll see you later!"

...

~Fumiko laughed. Lee smiled a little sheepishly.~

...

Her weapon was done. It was a majorly short Bo staff fragment, merely her arm's length, and even then the tip- no longer than her palm- was solid metal and unscrewed. The tip of iron was attached to a length of a small, terribly strong chain, with about a foot and a half of length past the unscrewed tip of the staff, and she could spin it and catch things with it and clock things with it, much like Matsuri's Dojo, except even screwed together it was a crushing weapon.

That bit of metal at the end could deal serious damage.

Fumiko was in the process now of carving her name in careful kanji toward the other end, which was bladed. It was only bladed because Temari, Mai, and every other kunoichi she'd brought it up with insisted she put in a handleless kunai blade into the other end like a spear, so if she flipped it, it was a stabby-weapon.

Fumiko dug one last deep flourish to the kanji and then sighed contentedly, putting it aside and brushing the wood shavings off of her lap. Then she stood to continue working on her 'rehabilitation.'

After the incident with the intruder at her studio, setting back up had been a long journey. Fixing the windows and cleaning up the bloodstains and spilled paint hadn't taken very long at all- even if there were fades patches of green and red and yellow and blue scattered around the floor- but the real problem had been her ruined art pieces.

Instead of throwing it away, Fumiko was rebuilding them, in a sense. She was going through the tedious process of cutting away the unruined strips of painted canvases and repasting them with watered-down glue onto new canvas in abstract collages of the original pictures.

Some of them were mixed up, different parts of two pictures that hadn't had enough salvageable material to recreate a new one. Now she had mixes of charcoal and watercolors, oils and colored pencils, wax crayon flowers and plain calligraphy dragons.

Fumiko gripped her exacto blade, which was kind of like a civilian's version of a senbon needle with a handle, sharp all around, and cut a circle of dirt out the painting of a river foam, which was raggedy and ground in and unusable.

...

~"So, what is yours?"~

...

Gaara leaned back in his chair, swiveling it around.

Probably for the first time since he had become Godaime Kazekage, Gaara had finished all of his assigned work. This might have been due to the fact that Fumiko had brought the problem of his teenaged assistants to Kankuro, and the two of them insisted on screening better candidates, but still...

It felt nice to look at an empty desk, holding only a few thick inventory and census records that he could go over tomorrow.

I'll definitely be able to go home on time, Gaara thought, gazing up at the blistering noonday sun through his window. Sunlight washed his skin with liquid gold, and tiny particles of sand danced in the air, just apparent to his vision. That will make Fumiko happy...

A flash of white caught the corner of his eye.

...

~She paused. "I dunno," Fumiko admitted with a shrug. "I've never thought about it before I guess."~

...

Satomi ran through the village under the cover of darkness, bent low to avoid detection by the various patrol guards she had seen dotting the rooftops. She could easily have jumped from place to place with her Black Ash Transfer technique, but she needed time to think.

Satomi was not invulnerable. She knew that much. Maybe, if she was lucky and depending on which one, she could take out one, perhaps two members of the Akatsuki, but if they all came after her at once, she would undoubtedly die.

If she died, her entire village would be at the mercy of the Akatsuki for three days, which would be more than enough time for them to destroy it. And the Akatsuki would certainly- perhaps a little sadly, but certainly- have tried to kill her if she had attempted to deny the mission and warn Sunagakure of the coming danger.

But she couldn't just assist Akatsuki in destroying the jinchuuriki. She didn't want to hurt her tentatively new friend like that. Even though she would easily be able to locate Gaara's unusual chakra and already had a fairly good idea about where the Kazekage would be, Satomi went through the motions of checking various areas away from the large looming tower in the center or the studio a fifteen minute's walk away from it.

Satomi's lips pursed slightly. The only option left after eliminating 'refuse to help' and 'help' was to help as minimally as possible, and somehow try to warn them of the attack before it happened and give Fumiko and Gaara a chance to escape rather than fight.

Gaara likely wouldn't listen to her and would go out to fight the moment she told him of a coming attack on his village, especially because he wouldn't trust her very much both as a stranger and as the one who had teleported into his lover's workplace.

But, if she could convince Fumiko to talk him into hiding, it would thwart the invasion. Likely Satomi would be able to report back to Pein that the jinchuuriki was gone.

Decision made, Satomi activated her teleportation technique.

...

~"Come on- you have to have a way of life! Knowing who you are is an important part of Youth!"~

...

Fumiko put down the blade and picked up the canvas she'd glued scraps of paintings all over and held it up to the moonlight shining through the many windows of her studio.

She smiled at it and stood, heaving to her feet and turning to the wall she'd been sitting against to hang it up. Now there were quite a few of these recycled paintings up on the walls- pretty soon, Fumiko was sure she would be done using as much of the ruined artwork as possible.

She'd barely straightened it out against the wall when she heard, "Fumiko-san! Are you in here?"

"Ne?" Fumiko said disbelievingly, smile growing on her face as she turned around. "Satomi?What are you doing here?"

Satomi hadn't changed at all. Well, neither had she, but Fumiko hadn't seen Satomi since before Mai was sent away for ANBU training.

She was standing in the center of Fumiko's studio floor, a few black particles of ashy darkness still coming together around her from her teleportation-style jutsu. Her face was strangely serious, set into a determined expression.

Her dark red hair was just as red, and nothing about the length of it had changed. Fumiko's own hair had grown an inch or two, but nothing about Satomi had changed at all, not her hair or her black eyes or her pale skin.

"Listen," she said, and strode across the room in a few quick strides to take her by the shoulders. "We don't have much time. So please don't interrupt me when I tell you this."

"Okay."

"Currently, two missing-nin from a group called the Akatsuki are going to show up in your village in an hour at the most, or perhaps much less. I do not know exactly how long it would take them on his clay bird. And..." Satomi paused. "They are after Gaara."

"The Akatsuki?" Fumiko yelped. "I know about the Akatsuki a little bit... But, why would they be after Gaara? Satomi, what's going on?"

"I know this is sudden, but you need to get Gaara out of the village. Does Sunagakure have any sort of evacuation area?"

"What?" Fumiko was confused now, holding Satomi's wrists and pulling them off her shoulders. "Gaara's the Kazekage, he can't-"

"There's no time! Both of you are in danger! If they find him before you do, all is lost for him. The Akatsuki do not fail. I myself am supposed to be helping them with this mission, but-"

"You? Satomi-"

"Listen to me! You need to find Gaara-san and-"

Suddenly, there were intense reverberations through the air. The sounds came from directly above them, outside, but close. The windowpanes rattled slightly. Fumiko looked up, startled.

"What was that?"

"Damn it," Satomi swore softly. "It is too late. Fumiko-san... I am truly sorry."

The air in front of her shimmered with blackness, the solid flesh held in her fingers dissolving like clouds of dark stardust into nothing. Satomi looked at her, once, just before the flakes of black reached her neck and head.

That look was apologetic and pained and angry all at the same time. Her eyes were shadowed and her lips pressed together so tightly they were white. Satomi's face, however, was drawn and accepting.

It scared her.

"Wait! Sato-"

Satomi vanished entirely.

Fumiko stood there for just another moment, eyes wide, fingers holding nothing just above her shoulder blades. Then she remembered the explosion from above- that was all it could have been- and turned quickly to her storage room.

The building, as she might have mentioned before, was built strangely, without second or third floors, only one floor and a lot of negative space and windows. But the walls were also made thickly and hollow- as though originally the builders had meant to add a corridor with stairs that led to those multiple floors.

The corridor and the staircase still existed, only now it was more like the entrance to an attic. If you pulled the flap of ceiling down above the little mattress she sometimes slept on, a small staircase would unfold, leading into complete darkness in the space between the wall.

Fumiko yanked on that trapdoor's thin leather string and stepped back when the ladder came down. As soon as it finished moving, she hefted herself onto the first step and began to climb.

It was a long climb. Not as long as it took to climb the stairs of the Tower, but now she was climbing the length of the her studio's building, and it took her a while to get to the top. When she finally did, she pushed open the trapdoor and heaved herself out.

She stood, brushing off her knees as she did, and glanced around until her eyes landed on the site of the explosion and froze, hands flying to her mouth.

Fumiko stared down at the blotch of red like the beginnings of an abstract seeping out across the roof. Only now it was coming from the neck of a man with bloodstained clothes and... and... and...

And he had no head.

There were bits of it here and there, with part of an eye still seeping clear fluid inches from her foot, and there was brain; a cerebral cortex chunk by the solar-panels, a piece of a medulla almost falling off the edge, swinging in the breeze, pinkish-gray and bloody, oh Kami it was everywhere.

There was nothing to heal here. Fumiko's blood pounded in her ears, her hands shook; raised in front of her mouth, and there were tears in her eyes and bile in her throat, rising, rising-... but she couldn't puke, she couldn't, Satomi's strange words were smashing through her ears like glass-tipped migraines-

"Currently, two missing-nin from a group called the Akatsuki are going to show up in your village in an hour at the most, or perhaps much less."

"If they find him before you do, all is lost for him. The Akatsuki do not fail. I myself am supposed to be helping them with this mission, but-"

Fumiko took no time to wonder who this man was or what he had been doing on her studio's roof with a pair of binoculars, just turned and fled back down the stairs, slamming the trapdoor above her with enough force to rattle the stairs attached, trembling fingers sliding the bolt.

As she clambered down the stairs, don'tthrowupdon'tyou'reamedic, there was a sudden sharp pain in her neck as the fishline pulled taught and the charm jerked sideways like it was possessed.

Fumiko froze, halfway down the wall, breathing hard and clutching the rungs, staring at the pulling walnut hovering in front of her eyes, straining to free itself, to respond to an unspoken command.

"They are after Gaara."

It tugged again, and Fumiko's muscles unfroze and she rushed down the stairs.

...

~"Hmm... My nindo... My way of life..." Fumiko chewed her lip thoughtfully, shifting her weight a little and bringing up a hand to tug on her necklace. Lee looked at her with wide eyes, expectant. "... I guess... to be happy. And to make other people happy. Yes."~

...

Fumiko tore through her studio, accidentally knocking over an easel, but the painting of starlight was dry, so she could assume it was okay when she heard it crash to the ground behind her.

She ripped the door open and almost, almost ran out the door, medical pouch's strap clutched in her fingers.

Fumiko almost was taken out by a flash of white and gold and then a rush of sand that blurred a few inches from her, ruffling her clothes violently with a gust of wind that pushed her back inside onto her back. Fumiko hit the floor hard, but scrambled back up and outside the door, staring with wide eyes after the trailing tail of sand.

Her charm tugged insistently in the direction of the Tower; Fumiko gripped it in one hand and closed the door behind her, dashing off down the now eerily empty streets, her footsteps echoing through the alleyways, pulsing with ancient sounding spring creaks of her prosthetic like squealing violin strings.

Fumiko passed nobody on her way, it was getting dark after all, and everyone was either eating dinner or just trying to beat the sun. Usually at this time, vendors would have been crowding the streets, but something was wrong, there was a tension in the air. Fumiko had missed something, and she had a feeling it had to do with that white and yellow-gold streak that smelled just like fresh, wet clay.

The shades were drawn on the street windows. Fumiko noted this dully as she thumped through the village, a few more minutes and she would be there, and would tell Gaara about the man on her roof, and he would explain the use of his ultimate defense, why her necklace was cutting ridges in her skin trying to escape from her.

The charm shot vertical into the air, and Fumiko had to grab like a madwoman to keep it from flying right off her neck. It fought her, straining against her fingers, but there wasn't enough of it to take her with it and she managed to yank it back down.

Fumiko looked up, eyes wide to the point of bulging, and saw sand in the air.

Her eyes traced the yellow lines to a single spot of gold-yellow. Gaara's suspension technique hovered high above the village, sand tracking after something white, the same white that had nearly taken her head off in the streets, the same sand thrashing through the air.

Gaara was fighting.

As she watched, the sand began to shift and tremble below her feet, and then everywhere, all around her and throughout the village huge pillars of sand began to rise, up into the sky, melting into an airborne tsunami, the biggest tsunami Gaara had ever produced before.

Fumiko had to duck, weave, jump, and drop to stay on the ground and not get pulled away. Finally Gaara had pulled enough, had what he needed, and it stopped, and the buildings were considerably taller now, the ground five or six feet lower than it had been seconds before.

Fumiko struggled to her feet, hand against a wall, and then steadied herself. She took a breath, held down her charm, and continued on to the Tower.

...

~Lee blinked. "That is it?"~

...

It was dark by the time she made it, heaving and staggering, to the Tower doors. It had been dark before, but now it was dark, and the temperature was dropping by the second.

Fumiko opened the huge doors and stepped inside, pants swirling through the silent, stagnant warm air inside, and made a beeline for the stairs.

The Tower was tall and it took a while to get to the top. Fumiko rushed past many of the servants and maids and ninja filtering about, along with one man from the Land of Birds that was staying for a mission request, who glared sourly at her when she accidentally knocked the glass from his hands. She picked it up for him with shaky hands before running again.

Fumiko could run now. At least, sort of. There was still a sixty to seventy percent chance that she would fall at any given time, and it was a limping, loping gait, but she could run, and she ran until her lungs burned, ran until she almost tripped backwards down the stairs, ran through the main floor and the mission floor and the servant's quarters floor and the floor for the guest rooms, and the main hall where she lived, and the smallest floor on the top, which was less like a round, wraparound hall and more like a single room, with a wall cutting it in half.

The left side of the topmost floor held the aviary, and the right side, empty save for a staircase to a catwalk across the ceiling, in front of the door to the roof.

Fumiko ran one more time to the stairs and clung to the rungs, clambering up, struggling to keep her prosthetic from slipping off the stairs, all the way to the top. The hollow metal clanged loudly and emptily through the room. Behind her, she could swear she heard the door to the aviary slam open.

Fumiko made it to the top, pulled herself onto the catwalk, and opened the door, rushing outside.

Kankuro was here, along with several others that she recognized, all of them here on the roof of the Tower, staring up at the sky. Mechanically, like a robot, she looked up.

There was an arm in the air now, Shukaku's clawed hand, chasing after what she saw now to be... a bird? A really strange looking white bird, with hollow eyes, and there was the gold, the hair on some rider with a black cloak.

Fumiko's thoughts were scattered by a ferocious bang, a hysterical explosion sound followed shortly and swiftly by yellow fire, swallowing Gaara's hasty circle of sand, angry red fire with an angry explosion that made her cover her ears and her legs shake, and made a lot of things shake.

"Gaara!" Fumiko's scream mingled with Kankuro's, and a few shinobi jerked around in surprise at her breathless cry, only to look back to the skies when they recognized her.

The explosion covered up the moon like a second sun, heat blazing, and then even the flower of fire was swallowed by a cloud of smoke, harsh gray smoke that Fumiko could smell even from her vantage point on the roof, and it made her eyes smart and water.

The smoke blotted out the moonlight and starlight for a second before it finally faded back into darkness, like the residue from fireworks, slowly; like a burning Suna cloud. It faded to reveal Gaara's ultimate defense, a big yellow-brown ball in the sky.

The rest of the sand, apparently forgotten by the intruder- because that's what he had to be, an intruder, an attacker, an infiltrator- moulding into claws and a palm and closing, closing, ready to crush him and his bird into dust.

Suddenly, as it closed, Fumiko connected the dots between the infiltrator and the explosion and the dead man on her roof.

Her mind worked on its own. Long-range explosive user. But what kind of explosives did he use? Chakra-based, or actual bombs? No, it would have to be chakra-based, there was no way someone would use or be able to accurately throw bombs at Gaara of the desert.

If she could see him clearer, then maybe she would be able to identify him, but in the air like that-

Enveloped by sand.

"It's all over," Kankuro said finally.

Now there were two spheres in the air, roughly the same size. Only now did the smoke and the impression of it completely fade, leaving behind a sour smell in the air. The shinobi around her sighed with relief, muttering among themselves with shaky voices.

"Leave it to the Kazekage!"

"Yeah. As long as we have Kazekage-sama, Sunagakure will be fine!"

Now, in the quiet of the seemingly finished battle, Fumiko stepped up behind Kankuro.

"Kankuro, what's going on?"

"I don't know," he answered tightly. "But that guy's Akatsuki."

"Akatsuki?" Fumiko gasped back.

"I was curious to know... if you knew anything about an organization of nuke-nin known as the Akatsuki. Gaara should know of it by now."

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. The cloak is a dead giveaway."

"... The Akatsuki?"

"Yes, the Akatsuki. I've been tracking them for a while. The trail got cold a while before the Land of Wind, but since we were close..."

"I'm sorry," Fumiko said apologetically. "But I don't know anything about them. Gaara doesn't really talk much about nuke-nin, and that kind of thing. Why?"

Jiraiya sighed. "I figured as much."

"As far as I know..." Fumiko thought back to every bingo book she'd flipped through in the library- the missing-nin of Sunagakure. "Uh, the only recent defection from Suna was someone named Sasori. He defected, maybe fifteen, twenty years ago?"

Jiraiya nodded. "Alright."

"Jiraiya, these Akatsuki, what's it about?"

"I'm not sure." Jiraiya thought for a moment. "Who's in charge of defenses here?"

"Suna here? Uh... Captain Yura, I think, but-"

"C'mon, Naruto," Jiraiya said, making to leave.

"Aww, but Pervy sage-"

"Wait, you're leaving? But you just got here!"

"Naruto!"

"Whatever. See you soon, Fumiko-chan! It was nice seeing you again!"

"Why were you after the Akatsuki, Uzumaki Naruto?" Fumiko murmured to herself. "Why are they after you... Gaara?"

"Hold on-!" Kankuro hissed.

At that exact moment, another bright explosion rocked the sky. The second sphere rumbled with smoke and tongues of flame, and that blew half of it apart; and a body was flung from it, the attacker, the rider, the intruder. The sand chased him through the air above their heads, rocketing towards the ground.

It grabbed something, his cloak, his foot maybe, and flung him back towards the busted, reforming sphere, and it tried to close around him. There was a puff of smoke, and something with the likeness of an owl pulled back, hard, just before it closed, wings flapping like crazy as it escaped.

A claw peeled away to give chase, quickly followed by more as the sphere unraveled itself after the flying target. Fumiko had to wonder who he was, why he was so intent on fighting Gaara... or was it Shukaku? Did he want to fight Shukaku, like Seimei had? Or want it's power?

The owl careened through the sky, barely staying ahead of the tendrils of clawed sand zipping after him. It was harder to see in the dark, but the owl was a stark white and the sand was bright.

"What an idiot," Kankuro said. The scowl on his face had morphed into a smirk. "There isn't a man alive that can escape Gaara's sand."

Fumiko had to agree. Yes, they got out of his killing attacks sometimes, but aside from Lee, nobody had ever lived that Gaara had tried to kill. Even then, Lee would have died had Guy not intervened. This Akatsuki member had picked a fight in Gaara's home, and not only was the sand a distinct advantage, but Gaara wouldn't let him anywhere near the villagers.

Streaking tails of sand rushed after the Akatsuki member like a jigsaw puzzle, in and out and back and forth and through each other, working seamlessly together to catch him. Fumiko had to admit, whatever he was flying on, whatever he made, it was fast.

"Kankuro!"

Kankuro turned at Baki's voice behind them. "Yeah? What is it?"

"Where is Gaara-sama? Is he still in battle?"

Fumiko pointed high into the air above her head with her left hand, gazing up as she did so. Her right hand still gripped her charm. "He's up there, Baki. He's fighting."

Baki and those with him looked up, at the sphere of sand that surrounded Gaara and the spears that chased his opponent. A few of them smiled.

"Come on, Gaara." Baki said quietly.

A hole dissolved into Gaara's sphere and the tendrils merged into one long, thin line of sand that chased and spiraled and curled only to close on nothing. The Akatsuki member dodged and spun and sped up at every last second, but eventually it nipped him, the sand on the top, the parts missing from the sphere, and curled in on his skin, up his arm.

Fumiko squinted at the seeping yellow growth climbing up his black sleeved arm. She only managed to see it because she could see the line of sand attached to it.

He moved; something curled around the sand, white, like some kind of snake or bug. It lit up from one end to another in multiple explosions, but when the smoke faded, the sand hadn't even scattered. It was his ultimate defense, after all.

The people around her started cheering.

"Did he get him?" Fumiko asked. "I can't see!"

The air filled with cheers. Fumiko realized, looking around and around, that there were shinobi on every rooftop and balcony, watching the fight, shouting cries of support and awed admiration. She stared at them, lips parting slightly, then smiled.

"Yeah, Fumiko," Kankuro said. "He got him!"

The blond Akatsuki member dove down into the buildings. Fumiko had a hard time tracking him through the hourglass homes, but he was weaving and twisting and turning, trying to... what? Rip his own arm off? That's exactly what he's trying to do, she thought. Gaara, get him, quick!

Too late. He soared overhead, sand trailing away and falling back underneath him. Fumiko couldn't tell against the velvet black of night sky, but he must have lost his arm to the sand... not that he would have been able to salvage it anyway had Gaara's sand somehow released him on it's own, but still...

"Darn it," Baki murmured in an adrenaline-shaken sigh. "He's gotten away."

"He just got lucky," Kankuro muttered. "It won't happen again."

The bird just hovered there for a moment, immobile, observing. It's wings flapped slowly, beating the air with precise strokes in a way that something of it's proportions shouldn't have been able to do.

Gaara's Ultimate Defense sand streaked upwards, and the bird jerked away and around it. The game of cat and mouse continued, Gaara lashing out unpredictably, the bird always fluttering just out of reach when he did so.

"A black cloak with a red cloud pattern..." a scout mused with his binoculars. "The enemy our lord is fighting against is most likely a member of the Akatsuki."

"Yeah, I figured." Kankuro said.

"Kankuro," Baki said urgently after a half second of silence.

Kankuro turned his head to look at the Jonin. "What is it?"

Fumiko kept her eyes on the fight above her. The sand writhed, then shot like an arrow towards the bird, which almost grazed it, coming within a quarter of an inch, but it dodged at the last second. It rushed again and again up at the blond Akatsuki member, who pulled his bird into a sharp left, spiraling, going left and right, up and down, barely avoiding Gaara's attacks.

All she could see was a white blob and yellow streaks, and Gaara's cracked sphere of protection, which was beyond dangerous if the attacker were to throw exposives at the hole, but there wasn't much else he could do in this kind of situation. Fumiko gripped the walnut in her hands, which jerked around, mimicking the fight above.

"Gaara's resorted to his Ultimate Defense up there," Baki said at last. Fumiko's ears twitched, but she kept her eyes on the battle above, tracking the sand's movements. Now the sphere was moving as well, circling across the moon in sync with his opponent. "I think it's safe to assume this enemy he's facing is a serious threat."

Whoosh, whoosh; and her pendant almost jerked her off her feet, but she stayed upright.

"... We can't rule out the possibility of Gaara losing control." Fumiko flinched, surprised, as did Kankuro. "The Shukaku could be unleashed. And our people will be in danger."

"Hmph. You won't have to worry about that. I know Gaara would never harm the people of this village. Not ever."

Fumiko sidestepped, turning just a beat to face Gaara's former pseudo-sensei, pulling her eyes away from the fight to stare at him. Baki of all people should have known- should have known that Gaara would never, never...

All around her there were cheers of support, people calling out to their Kazekage. They all believed in him. Fumiko believed in him. Kankuro believed in him. Just like Gaara had always wanted... to be cherished and respected and trusted.

To be needed.

Fumiko looked back up to the sky and yelled, "Gaara!"

...

~Fumiko beamed. "Yep! To be happy and to make the people around me happy- that's my nindo!"~

...

For just a fraction of a second, something flitted over the Jinchuriki's face. It was gone before Deidara could truly figure out what it had been, but it had been, just a flicker of emotion in his ruthlessly determined, emotionless eyes.

Deidara allowed himself a split second to glance down and see what the source of it was, that girlish cry that was so different from all the other blathers, a single word. No 'Kazekage-sama', no 'Lord', just one name with no honorifics. It must have been the One Tails' host's name. 'Gaara.'

He clicked his camera on, then dodged a wave of sand. The vision focused, then blurred again, then focused once more as it adjusted to his movement, zooming in on that voice, which called out again, "Gaara!"

Snap! Picture taken. Zoom in on the face, Snap! Brown hair, Snap! Brown eyes. Snap! Thin figure with no real curves to speak of. Snap! Hands clutching at something that seemed to try to fly away from her, at the base of her neck. Snap, snap! Interesting prosthetic in place of her left foot. Snap!

She was staring up at them, eyes weirdly hard, not in an intense way. It was more like she was ridiculously pleased, determined, confident in her Kazekage's victory. Stupid kid, Deidara thought, sticking a hand in his pouch.

Who was she, though? To summon emotion in an emotionless face just by calling out a name?

Oh.

Deidara smirked and avoided yet another vice claw of sand.

I see.

...

~"But how can you be certain you will be happy all the time?"~

...

"Summon the council. Immediately!" Baki barked to his squad of shinobi.

"Yes sir!" A fwish of wind as he jumped straight up to an adjoining building.

"You- take two squads and secure the reservoir. Now!"

"Sir!"

He left.

"Seal the roads in Sector A!"

"Yes sir!"

"There may be more than one enemy. Now I don't care what happens; I want all of you poised and ready! Medical corp! Start setting up a barrier, and get all non-combatants inside of it, on the double! I don't want to hear of a single casualty, is that clear?"

If the reservoir was destroyed, Suna would be in ruins. The reservoir had stood since Sunagakure's founding, and although it had needed repairs every now and again, it had always stood, and filtered the meager spring underground. Without it the water would simply seep into the sand and make mud, much like the sand around it that her and Gaara had made sand castles in; the little water that had escaped.

It made sense that he would order it defended. In the time it would take to build a new one, Suna would be in a state of panic. It also made sense to protect the civilians and Genin.

But why did Baki need the Elders?

Shinobi streamed about as his orders caught like wildfire, running through the streets. Fumiko realized her own mother would be helping with the barrier, and that if worse came to worse she herself would be called upon to press back into Medic Corps.

"We're here for you, Gaara," Baki said quietly, then looked up at the sky, face set with determination. "Yes; we're here for the Lord Kazekage!"

"Hang in there," Kankuro almost whispered.

...

~"I just know that I will be. I mean, how can I not?" Fumiko brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, still smiling. "My life is amazing."~

...

"I think your friends are about to butt in here," the man with the clay creation observed. "And besides... I'm tired of that expressionless face of yours."

He opened his hands, released whatever explosive creature he had formed with the mouths on his palms. Gaara tensed, preparing for attack, sand whirling about him and behind the Akatsuki member on the clay bird.

It flew out, hovered slightly in the space between them, and then expanded with a puff of smoke and a sound with searing light that Gaara almost mistook for the explosion itself. It unfurled what looked like giant wings, with empty holes for eyes and a wide, gaping mouth. It looked almost like a nun, or perhaps a monk.

Gaara's eyes widened at the sheer size of it. An explosive of that size, compared to the explosions of it's smaller counterparts, would have enough force to-

No.

The wings lifted slightly, like it was waving farewell, and then it dropped straight down like a weighted stone toward the village, course set for the tiny roof of the Tower far, far below them. Gaara's lips parted, nothing but a rush of air escaping.

The man with the clay bird snickered at his expression. "That was a doll molded from detonating clay chewed up by my palm, and loaded with chakra. It's a specialty of mine... full of C-3, the most powerful chakra I possess. It's destructive power is my masterpiece!"

The shinobi so far below them, those who had not even joined the fight yet, began to scatter away from the doll as it gained speed, rushing towards the ground.

Gaara's sight was so, so clear. In fact, it was almost better than perfect, enhanced in a way by the demon inside of him, just like his other senses. And so he could see with perfect clarity the expression on his friends' faces; Kankuro squinting up at it, Baki opening his mouth, Fumiko reaching for the binoculars limp in another's hand, one hand raised to shade her eyes so she could try to see better.

There was a single dull heartbeat.

Fumiko! Gaara thought suddenly, wildly, the village!

He jerked his fingers. The sand pulled and strained against his weaning power but obeyed him, barely; and the Shukaku was fighting him more and more as Gaara grew weaker, laughing; trying to kill them all, but that was the least of Gaara's worries- he didn't care about the demon.

Sweat broke out on his face and neck, his lungs froze mid-breath; Gaara could feel the chakra burning through and out of him faster than he could handle it, searing through his coils through the invisible connection he had with the sand, move, move, move.

There was a flash of white-gold light.

The bomb exploded.

...

~"But what about everything else? Hope, fear, anger, sadness, determination, the passion of Youth?"~

...

The sky lit up gold, and then the village, outlined in white so starkly that for a single precious, silent second, the world looked monochrome, white burning away the shadows, heat melting consciousness.

Then there was a bang, and the sound of the explosion set in, rumbling the roof of the building under her feet, her home; it rattled Fumiko's eardrums and she was forced to drop the binoculars, brought to her knees. She managed to look up, eyes squinted against the light, one arm raised, and then she realized it was fire; that white light was fire and that had been a bomb and tongues of heat were licking across her skin.

Smoke filled her eyes and her throat, and then her ears began to ring, and she couldn't hear her death any longer.

When the shaking finally subsided, Fumiko thought, Death is really cold.

And then she realized that the heat had faded and the temperature had gone back to Sunagakure-night-freezing.

Her ears were still ringing, but she could hear a little better now. Fumiko struggled to her feet, lowering her arm, swaying slightly. She looked up again, and then she realized suddenly why it was so much darker than moonlight: there was sand, the village's sand, curved above them like a catcher's mitt. A shield, a true Ultimate Defense despite the lack of chakra.

Gaara, she mouthed, and had no idea if she'd actually spoken or not.

The ringing in her ears began to fade. The sand shifted, barely with the wind, just enough that she could see over the fringe of it. Gaara had stopped it in it's tracks, before it had even gotten close enough to obstruct her view of the battle.

"I expect nothing less from the Kazekage," Baki said quietly, almost in awe.

"Gaara did it." Kankuro sighed, smile on his face.

Suddenly the charm no longer in her hands ripped itself free, tearing into the air. Fumiko cried out in surprise, but it yanked off her neck and through her hair and flew skyward like a bird, faster than Fumiko had ever seen Gaara's sand move. She reached for it, ignoring Kankuro and Baki's sounds of confusion, despite the fact that it was already far above her grasp.

All at once, there was another explosion, almost more violent than the last against the pitch night sky, flames leaping off the side of Gaara's partially open sphere, followed by a rushing plume of smoke.

Fumiko's scream was piercing even to her own ears. "Gaara!"

Kankuro screamed with her.

Fumiko dropped to her knees again, scrambling in the white-lanced-darkness to find the binoculars she had dropped, and then her scrabbling fingers caught the leather strap and she stood and raised it to her face.

All she could see was smoke. Everywhere around her there were murmured whispers, anxious mumbles to one another like disembodied spirits, tittering, rising from the earth. I can't see, they said, what happened, is the Kazekage okay, please tell me he's okay.

That last whisper was hers.

Finally the smoke began to clear. When it did, and when the image finally came into focus as she blinked hard, Fumiko sighed with relief.

"It's intact," she said numbly, voice trembling.

Sand crumbled off the bottom, and it was a little dented in places where chakra had literally been burnt away, but it was still intact, and Gaara was inside of it. His Ultimate Defense must have been close enough to cover the hole just in time. Her worn painted-gold pendant hovered almost uncertainly in the air far above her.

He tried to distract Gaara by threatening to kill the entire village, Fumiko realized with some measure of disbelief. Why would he go that far...?

"Hmph," Baki grunted, with a small smile playing across his lips. "Gaara's Ultimate Defense can withstand much more than that detonation."

"Baki-sama," a ninja said from behind them. "The attack preparations have been completed."

"Very well. You will launch the assault on my signal!"

Fumiko was starting to smile again, starting to move her lips, ready to scream something like yes or he did it or just Gaara!

But then the words froze in her throat when the sphere bulged, imploding from the inside out. The sand writhed like it was in pain, ripping at the seams, the sphere bursting in the sky; it was falling apart, draining itself off the bottom like the top of an hourglass. Slowly ice began to prickle through her chest.

"No..."

"That blast," Baki managed when his shock faded. "What happened in that sphere?"

"Is..." Kankuro stammered. "Is he..."

There was only silence. Now there was no hushed speculation, no quiet pleas and prayers. The air was charged with shock and fear, some still from the explosion that almost killed them and then this one...

There was a clatter as Fumiko's walnut charm necklace hit the ground a few feet away, rolling loudly and unevenly until finally it stopped against her right shoe.

No. I would know. Fumiko thought vehemently. I would know if he...

Kankuro took a few quick steps forward. In the silence the scuffs were like flashbangs. "Gaara!"

The sphere crumbled even more, chunks of sand falling off in rivers. Fumiko gripped the binoculars so hard that it snapped down the middle, and suddenly she was holding two separate scopes, one in either hand. She dropped the useless tool parts to the ground, and then left her hands there, just hanging.

"Kazekage-sama!" two shinobi cried nearby.

"No. It can't be." Baki's voice was indiscernible. "He broke Gaara's Ultimate Defense?"

"How on Earth did he do that?" Kankuro breathed, taking a wary step back like he would fall if he didn't.

The sphere finally began to break apart, great huge pieces cracking off and falling far below. Fumiko knew that it would be impossible to find it again, and that if Gaara survived this he would have to make a whole new batch, and then he would be exhausted for days, and they would argue lightly about going to the hospital until they compromised, Gaara staying in the bedroom, Fumiko manning his desk.

If. Why had she thought that?

"His sand," Fumiko whispered, voice barely more than a breath. Her heart seemed to escape with the air. "It was in his sand."

Fumiko squinted at the seeping yellow growth climbing up his black sleeved arm. She only managed to see it because she could see the line of sand attached to it.

He moved; something curled around the sand, white, like some kind of snake or bug. It lit up from one end to another in multiple explosions, but when the smoke faded, the sand hadn't even scattered. It was his ultimate defense, after all.

The people around her started cheering.

Finally, all of the sand had mushroomed away, gone into the air like wisps. It tortured her, but Fumiko could barely see him, his limp body hanging from what was left of his chakra, suspended in the sky like a single drop of water.

The bird tried to get closer but then all at once backed off, flapping high and far away.

"What's going on?" Fumiko's throat was tight with worry; speaking at all was almost painful. It was Kankuro who answered her, face pale like a ghost, pale like her face, both of them mirroring each other, except that Kankuro could see and she couldn't.

"He's... I don't know. Gaara..."

The sand shield above them vibrated, then began to move. Slowly, deadly slowly, but it began to move, and it moved away from them, toward the village walls. It dawned on Fumiko then, what was happening. Gaara was using the very last of his strength to move the sand, to get it out of the way before his power failed completely. If it fell, the result would be a catastrophe.

People would die. Buildings would collapse. Any barrier the Medic Corps. had put up would be crushed like an origami crane under a three-ton weight. The reservoir would be unsalvageable.

"What now...?"

"He's using every last bit of his power to transport the sand safely outside the village," Kankuro said in response to Baki's unfinished question. His voice was brittle and dry. "He's trying to save his people."

"Oh... Gaara..." Fumiko murmured.

Baki suddenly whipped around, flinging out an arm at the few shinobi left on the roof. "What do you men think you're doing? We must rescue our Kazekage! Commence the attack!"

"Yes sir!"

They took off to deliver Baki's order, obviously shaken.

Just minutes later, whistles started to hiss through the air as the manual crossbows on every other rooftop and on the ground began to fire. They missed by longshots- Fumiko began to realize that if Gaara's sand couldn't catch him off guard, how possibly could plain old arrows?

Her thoughts were answered after the first two volleys of arrow shafts whizzed past the giant white owl. On the third launch, something was different. Attached to the shaft ends, Fumiko realized as they rained upside-down all around her, were explosive tags.

They reached the Akatsuki member, who continued to dodge these in the same way he had those previous. When they started to explode, his movements hiccuped and for a second Fumiko dared to hope, but then he seemed to get over his surprise.

The bird whipped through the hailstorm of explosion and arrows. Suna shinobi where, if nothing else, resilient and relentless in everything they tried. Fumiko bit her lip, and she barely even had to wait a second before it started to bleed.

Not a single arrow or blast hit its mark.

The sand above their heads continued to move. People, civilian and ninja alike, cheered it on, shouting support even though they couldn't help. Fumiko wondered for a moment where her father was in all this fray.

Minutes passed like this, with explosions and the sand moving and everybody cheering. Fumiko herself found she couldn't, her throat was frozen.

"Come on, Gaara," Kankuro muttered. "Don't give up yet!"

Finally, finally, lifetimes later, the sand crossed the border of the village. The second it did, the part that had passed over began to crumble; Gaara was letting it go as soon as he could, and eventually it was all over the edge, unable to harm anyone.

As soon as that happened, the human-shaped oval of sand in the air began to fall.

"Gaara!"

"I'll get you!"

Kankuro began to dash forward like he would leap off the top of the Tower roof, but he hadn't taken two quick steps before the bird in the sky dove, maneuvering underneath Gaara's falling form trailing sand like a falling, shooting star, slipping through inky blackness.

Make a wish upon a star, Fumiko thought. Please let him be okay.

Sand scattered like a starburst, stopped abruptly in the air. The white tail of the bird wrapped fluidly around his body, curling and swallowing him until he was trapped, sand still sliding off Gaara's skin in waves and trickling into the sky. Two, three powerful swishes of it's wings, and the bird took off, flying away.

Away from the village.

"What's he doing?" Fumiko cried. "Why's he taking him?"

The Akatsuki man dodged a few more quick arrows shot from somewhere below. They exploded in turn, white and red collages of wood shafts and fire, leaving smudges of smoke behind.

Fumiko whirled. "Baki, if it hits that bird and blows up, Gaara'll get hurt too!"

Baki grimaced and turned to the Chuunin on his left. "You could hit Lord Kazekage. Tell them to cease fire- immediately!"

"Uh- sir!" He turned and raised a hand to nobody; although there were probably ninja nearby, hidden only by darkness and Fumiko's overwhelming seeds of panic. "Hold your fire!" he bellowed. "All units, cease your fire at once! Cease fire! Cease fire!"

"... Gaara..." Kankuro said agitatedly.

"What the devil is he doing now?" Baki hissed.

The bird took a sharper turn, ceasing it's rounded, lazy spirals, and setting a course straight for the village's carved sandstone wall.

"Don't tell me he's leaving the village!" Kankuro said suddenly.

"Is he going to try and take him alive?" Bai asked the air.

Kankuro let loose a feral growl and then sprinted forward, palms raised behind him. Strapped to his back were his puppet scrolls holding Ant and Crow. "I'm going after him!" he snarled.

"Kankuro, no!" Baki yelled. "Don't go by yourself! Wait for a backup squad!"

"By then he and Gaara'll be long gone!"

Fumiko's head was swimming. Her lips moved in soundless words, gasps for air. Gaara had been defeated. No- Gaara had allowed himself to be taken down, he had saved them at the expense of his own power. He could have easily won, Fumiko realized, had he not been fighting defensively.

"... No..."

"Yup. I'll see you tonight, though, yeah?"

"Yes. I'll... be home."

Fumiko flipped back around so that she was upright, hands on his desk, then grinned and leaned closer, nuzzling his nose with hers before he could react or pull away. "Okay."

"Okay," he murmured back, flushing but smiling hesitantly. "I swear I'll be back home on time. Early, even."

"Fumiko-sama," the Chuunin with the scarred face that had ordered the ceasefire said firmly. "We need to get you into safety now that the Kazekage's situation is compromised. You could be in danger."

"Don't engage until we catch up with you!"

Kankuro took a flying leap off the roof in the direction of the bird that held her best friend in tow, landing nimbly on the closest rooftop, kept moving, and didn't look back. "All right! Understood!"

Baki seemed to sag slightly as Kankuro's form grew smaller. "Damn..."

"Fumiko-san." Fumiko turned, pulled out of her daze by a persistent hand on her shoulder. "We need to get you into-"

I swear I'll be back home on time.

I swear I'll be back home.

I swear.

"Give me a kunai."

...

~"All of it," Fumiko agreed. "But there's always happiness."~


	2. War

~ "If you want to learn how to fight, you have to be able to fight." ~

...

"F- Fumiko-sama?"

Fumiko's hand shot out, fingers coiling into his shirt, not pulling but pushing her face into his, desperate, wild. The Chuunin froze, and Fumiko watched a bead of sweat slide down his temple."Give me a kunai! A shuriken! Something! Now!"

"But I-"

"Now, please!"

His hand slid into a pouch on his thigh and withdrew, there was an average-sized standard release Sunagakure kunai in his palm. Fumiko released him, grabbed it, then turned and raced to the entrance to the roof.

"Fumiko!" Baki barked. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going to get Gaara back!"

Baki's protests were cut off by the heavy metal slam of the corridor stair door. Fumiko missed the third rung down with her feet and slid down the rest of the stairs, metal nails stinging at her fingers, and by the time she was all the way to the bottom she was panting from adrenaline, hands bleeding and shaky, but she shook it off and ran past the aviary door to the next-level staircase.

There was no way she could have roof-hopped like Kankuro. As it was she could barely tree-hop like a proper Chuunin. The next best thing was getting to the bottom of the Tower, climb down all these stupid steps, and somehow catch up to Kankuro, maybe by shunshin. Fumiko started down the steps quickly.

She ran too fast, didn't hold on to the handrails. Screams rang through the small, tight hallway with its small, tight staircase when she tripped on a step halfway down, prosthetic slipping off it before she had the chance to put her foot down on the one below it.

Fumiko flew through the air, staring at the floor as it got closer, kunai flashing; half-hoping for something- she wasn't sure what- but instead of the comforting, flowing sound of rushing sand and a loose grip around her body, there was only the cut-off grunt of her scream when she hit the stairs, bounced and hit them again, then rolled, steps slamming and digging into her ribs and arms and legs.

Her head banged against the wall, spinning her around so she was falling feet-first instead of head-first, and then finally she hit the bottom platform and skidded into another wall. Fumiko almost fell down the second staircase, the one that led to the next floor, but she flailed her hands- where was the kunai?- and the fingers of her left hand caught the iron railing and slammed to a stop, arm jerking, side smashing into the plain metal bars.

There was a clattering sound; the kunai had and still was falling down the second staircase.

She took just a second to pant, gasping, mentally assessing her injuries; Fumiko's head hurt and was funnily pulsing, as did her only ankle, but then-

Gaara.

Fumiko pulled herself to her feet, this time holding, clutching at the rail. When she got down to the next level, she picked up the kunai- really, really, how hadn't she been stabbed falling down that small, tight staircase in that small, tight hallway with a ninja blade?

Fumiko ran down the stairs, ran past the servant's quarters and down more stairs and the main living floor and down more stairs and the guest rooms and down more stairs and the mission floor, ran past shinobi and civilians rushing around in a panic, ran past an Advisor being led by a Chuunin to the top levels, and then out the door, where she tripped and landed in the freezing cold sand at the feet of worried Suna citizens.

She pushed through them, Excuse me excuse me excuse me- and the streets were crowded with people, but it was no different from market days except that people were screaming, so she shoved through them, in the direction of the wall. The bird was already gone, how long it had taken her to get down the steps Fumiko didn't know, and now she was just drilling through them, leaving sand in her wake as her foot picked up speed and she was almost in a shunshin and now, only now were they starting to get out of her way.

Fumiko's feet erupted and she was flying as word-of-mouth told those in front of her to move, to make something of a path, and all around her there were cries of despair and worry, they were drowning her and closing in on her skin.

Just minutes later- five, ten?- she was at the Sunagakure entrance, the gate, the doorway, the crevasse in a bunch of sandstone that usually remained hidden to outsiders unless, of course, they were in the air, because then their village was easy to spot, carved out life in the middle of a dead desert.

It was getting colder by the second.

Shivering, winded, she stepped into the opening. Up ahead, she heard noise, the sounds of people talking, and so she took a deep breath and ran again, just normal running this time, to catch up and see who it was. There was supposed to be a unit out here, so maybe it was them- maybe somehow they had stopped...

Sand hissed as her foot shuffled to a stop.

"Oh my..."

There was a splatter of dead bodies, red sprayed around the valley like somebody hand shaken a red-covered brush above the gruesome scene- it was like an abstract dotted with too-real dead bodies.

Kankuro and another unit of shinobi picked through the mess, just leaving, heading out in an almost single-file line, leaving the shinobi there, but even Fumiko's eyes- her medic-trained eyes- could see that they were all dead, except maybe for that one on the side there that a shinobi man was trying to help to his feet.

She rushed forward to help, and then a spark of orange seared her vision.

"Please die."

Fumiko hated paper bombs.

There was an explosion that rocked the crevasse, sparking even more explosions that flung her backward out of the line of fire (she was barely out of the line of getting-crushed-by-dislodged-rocks) that burned her skin and pushed smoke into her throat. When she finally did hit the ground, the world was still falling apart, so she rolled on her belly and put her arms over her head and waited.

Finally the rumbling stopped. By some luck she had managed to avoid being crushed- she had just barely been thrown out of range.

There was a pile of rocks, each one bigger than her, just a foot and a half away from where she had been sprawled. Any closer and she would have rolled over right into getting her arms pulverized or her spine snapped or her head crushed. She sat up.

There were footsteps behind her. Fumiko's ears were ringing a little bit, still rumbling in the absence of falling rocks. Baki and a whole other squadron of ninja ran to the pile. They stopped a few feet to her right.

"No- it can't be," Baki breathed.

"Do you think Kankuro-san and the others were caught in that trap?"

Fumiko flinched. She'd forgotten all about the others who must have been caught in those blasts full force. Now she wanted to throw up, because Gaara and because blood and because death and explosions and-

"No, I... I can't believe it." Baki's voice was shaky.

The mountain of rock rumbled again, and the shinobi, who seemed to have either forgotten or not noticed she was there, backed up.

"Watch out! It's going to collapse!" Baki hissed.

But then the rumbling stopped, and Fumiko raised a hand over her eyes to cover them from dust and squinted up at the black blob that erupted from the rocks. The mound stopped trembling. There were gasps from the other shinobi.

"What in the..."

A puff of smoke- and the blob was Salamander, just Salamander, and Kankuro was standing atop the crushed rocks with an unconscious ninja in either hand. Fumiko realized he must have saved himself and whoever he had the chance to grab by summoning Salamander from his scroll and blocking the worst of the rocks.

Fumiko stood, hands on her knees, gasping.

Baki grunted in surprise. "Kankuro..."

Kankuro knelt, gently depositing the men on the flattest bits of rock around him. "I was only able to save two of them," he said, and then louder, turning his head to look at Baki: "These men need medical attention! Hurry!"

Fumiko stuck the kunai between her teeth, put her hands on the rocks, tested them for stability, and then picked up a foot and wedged it into a nook, and then tested her weight again.

"Wait," Baki said behind her, "What are you going to do?"

She started to climb.

"Whaddaya think?" Kankuro snarled. "I'm gonna bring Gaara back."

Now the other shinobi were starting to notice her and the pebbles and dust breaking off underneath her fingers and sliding below her.

"Are you insane?" Baki demanded. "Didn't you see what they did to Gaara? Do you really think you stand a chance alone?"

"What are you suggesting?" Kankuro's voice was cold and rugged. Fumiko was more than halfway up, almost to the top, and she knew now that Baki had seen her as well from his sharp intake of breath. "That we just let him go?"

"No, of course not! We'll find out where his base is, and then we'll send out a large, fully equipped squad."

"Kankuro!" she cried, voice muffled by the kunai's hilt. He looked down, saw her, and tch'd.

"You're not coming."

"Yes I-" A rock broke off, and she had to throw herself forward to grab another one. "Yes I am." She raised her voice. "Yes I am, Baki!"

There was a moment of tense silence, during which Fumiko struggled the rest of the way to the top and pulled herself over. She didn't really realize how dangerous it had been to climb a probably unstable pile of rocks heavier than statues until she had cleared it.

"Very well," Baki said at last. "Go on and follow them! But you're not to engage!"

"Tch," Kankuro said again. "Fine. I'll try, but no promises."

He leaped from the pile and down to the rocky mess of a ground on the other side. Fumiko quickly scrabbled towards him and slid down the pile like a slide, although she could feel cuts opening up on her legs.

Kankuro waited for about two seconds, which was barely enough time to reach the bottom and steady herself next to him before he growled at the tracks left behind. He wasn't paying much attention to her any longer.

There were about five trails of two sets of tracks, with one trench dug into the ground and a solid set of footsteps each. They branched off in completely different directions- if they followed the wrong one they would never catch up.

Greyish white-gold caught her eye. She spat the kunai out into her hand and pointed with it.

"There," she said, voice muted. "Sand."

Kankuro took a few steps forward, dropped to one knee and scraped it up with his fingers, then stared hard at the palm of his hand. He clenched his fist, tensed, and looked at her, and she nodded. Then he stood, nodded back, and exploded from where he had been standing. Fumiko started and took off after him, running as fast as she could, unevenly- the world tilted and straightened and tilted and straightened.

She caught up to him and they ran together. The only difference was that after a while, Fumiko's lungs burned for air and she gasped and stumbled, and he didn't.

Eventually the tracks they were following split again in to three more and Kankuro stopped, barely out of breath. Fumiko herself teetered slightly, panting, hands on her knees. The fork was a good thing- it meant they were going the right way. Kankuro paused, his entire body taut, head whipping from track to track.

Fumiko said nothing, out of breath like she was, merely straightened again and pointed to the tracks farthest to the left scattered with Gaara's still-hard Sand Armor fragments.

"That way," he muttered, and then they were running again.

...

~ "I know, Gaara," she said, biting her lip. And she did know that- but deep down she wondered if knowing and acting would ever be the same thing. Fighting was so.. so... but she had to know how to fight. Or at least how to escape. ~

...

"Aren't you supposed to be hiding or something?"

Mai shrugged, hands on the back of her head. "Eishi and Shiragiku can hide if they want, but Shikamaru already knows I'm here, anyway. Probably even knows it's me by now."

Of course, her sensei would probably lecture her later for breaking her cover. Not that Mai really cared- her sensei was sort of laid-back.

Temari rounded a corner, or at least started to, and Mai followed.

"Everyone else in their right minds is sleeping right now," Shikamaru said casually, unfazed that Mai had already known he was there and was waving a lazy hand his way.

"Why are you..." Temari started, then seemed to think better of it and continued walking. Mai did as well, and was eventually followed by Shikamaru, who fell into step with them on Temari's other side. Mai could sense Eishi and Shiragiku close by on the roofs on either side of them. "I have my own village to worry about, you know. I've been gone too long, so since I'm finished here, I thought I'd head back."

"Yeah," Shikamaru said, "But without having any breakfast?"

Temari blinked and looked at him. "Oh, I'll find a teahouse or something along the way. Come to think of it... what are you doing up so early?"

"Yeah, Shikamaru," Mai said, grinning over at the Chuunin pineapple-head and reaching into her shoulder bag for a grapefruit. "Whatever are you doing up so early, conveniently at the same place we just happen to be walking through?"

"Believe me, I wish I wasn't," he said, completely unaffected. His face was neutral. "But I'm supposed to be your escort while you're in our little village, remember? It's a drag, but it's my mission."

Temari giggled slightly, raising a hand to her chin. "Sorry to be so much trouble."

"Kay, well, remember when you said I was supposed to be hiding?" Mai snickered. Temari blinked, tiny girlish smile fading.

"Yeah?"

"Well, I'm gonna do that now." Mai saluted. "Meetcha at the gate, Temari... Shikamaru."

Mai took a running start and then darted straight up a wall, jumping off the edge and landing neatly beside Eishi.

"Sup," he said indifferently.

Nearly two weeks of being teammates- and getting quite a few very intense issues out of the way- had at least somewhat dulled their undiluted hatred for each other. Now it was more of a 'you stop being an ass, and I won't kill you' kind of mutual friendship they had going on.

Eishi, when he wasn't trailing after or being trailed after by a group of spineless idiots who picked on nearly everyone that was smaller than them or different from them, actually wasn't that bad. Mai still disliked him because he was more or less a coward, but he wasn't- unbearable. Eishi no longer flinched every time she moved and was a little more relaxed, although he was definitely still wary of actually pissing her off.

"Almost time we got home," Mai said. "Eishi, don't you think so?"

"I don't mind it here. It's easy to hide."

"Easy to hide? Don't you get leaves stuck in your hair?"

"Your hair is a little more wild than mine is, you know," Eishi pointed out, keeping a careful eye on Temari and Shikamaru. True, his hair was something closer to a bowl cut, coming down to his ears. His bangs were still more normal than Lee's, though, so Mai tolerated it. But his was pink.

Mai didn't care how relevant that was to his argument- salmon pink was worse than black in almost every case.

"So? Doesn't mean there aren't a million other things wrong with this village."

"You know, if you wore your forehead protector on your forehead instead of your sheath belt like a normal person, the branches wouldn't mess up your hair so bad, either. And you might actually avoid being attacked by random jonin who think you're a nuke-nin."

Mai scowled. "That only happened twice! Anyway, any Jonin who thinks a twelve year old is a nuke-nin is an idiot."

Not like that was any different from a jonin thinking a twelve year old was actually an ANBU officer with a mask in the seal in the bag over her shoulder, but hey, appearances.

They jumped to the next rooftop.

"No need to be so defensive."

"No need to be an idiot."

"That wasn't clever."

"Oh, yeah? Well, clever this!"

"Gyah!"

Mai ran ahead, dropping the now empty skin of her snack and snickering, as Eishi wiped the pink guts of a handful of grapefruit meat out of his eyes.

Below them, as Eishi gave chase, Temari and Shikamaru had reached the gate. Mai probably could have heard what they were saying, too, if she hadn't been laughing her head off and avoiding flying roof tiles torn off the roof behind her and flung at her head.

Mai ran to the end of the last house, pushing chakra into her toes, and took a flying leap, breaking off a few of the tiles on the edge and easily clearing Konohagakure's wall. Her feet caught the outer rim of the wall, and she somersaulted forward, still laughing, and flipped in midair to land on her feet outside of the village.

"Bye, Shikamaru!" she yelled as Shiragiku as well appeared on Temari's right. Somewhere nearby, still on the other side of the wall, she could hear Eishi shouting angrily. Most likely, Otokaze-sensei was already part of the way up the trail. Mai snickered again and made to leap into the trees when a sudden gust of wind flung her hair back.

All in the Suna party- except for Eishi, he was still behind the wall and sheltered from the disturbingly warm, disturbingly strong blast of air- stopped, gazing up at the sky. Mai stilled and frowned.

Oh, shit, she thought, that could kick up a sandstorm back home.

...

~ "Are you sure?"

Even at nine years old, Fumiko knew that she needed to learn it. She didn't think she would ever need it, no- Gaara would always be there to protect her- but just in case. 

"Yep," she replied with a smile. ~

...

They ran until the sun came up, staining the desert red and orange.

Finally, what seemed like hours later, they caught up.

Fumiko could see the big white clay bird, with Gaara still wrapped up in it's tail like a stack of twigs for some giant twisted nest, and the people traveling with it. The taller one was missing an arm and so she recognized him, and the other, shorter one, the one who had left the slithering-trench trail was a stranger to her.

Kankuro was ahead of her now, just by a few feet, but it was enough that she had to catch up when he suddenly stopped.

They had been spotted. Not surprising, given the sound of her prosthetic and stumbling gait and heavy breathing. Not that it mattered, Kankuro would have attacked them as soon as he was in range and caught their attention in a heartbeat, anyway.

Fumiko straightened, clenching the kunai in her hand tight enough to cause pain.

"Hold it right there," Kankuro growled. "We meet at last. Hand over Gaara, now!"

Fumiko's chest tightened when she saw him. Gaara didn't appear too heavily damaged- not to her, anyway, to any other person the severe cracks in his armor might look disconcerting, but aside from a small trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth that indicated he might have bitten his tongue or gotten some kind of light internal damage from the explosion inside his sphere, he didn't look like he would be too injured under his Sand Armor.

It was almost like they'd been trying to take him alive.

It wasn't because of the village, or the Akatsuki man would have said something, given some sort of demand, and anyway they wouldn't have set those explosives at the village entrance. It wasn't because Gaara was Kazekage because if that was the case they would have just killed him.

It had to have something to do with Shukaku. Fumiko was sure of it.

"Hmph."

"Deidara," the shorter one said. "You go on ahead."

Deidara.

The shorter one blurred and was gone, only seconds afterward Fumiko's brain caught up and she realized he wasn't gone, he had just jumped, and now he was in front of them with a heavy sounding phoom, and the sand wavered around him. He stood hunchbacked, and Fumiko couldn't see his hands or his feet, just half of his face.

There was no way he was that heavy. Fumiko bit her lip. Maybe he had heavy ninja weapons or something similar...

Kankuro reached behind him and gripped his scrolls, pulling them out of their holsters and quickly kneeling to let them roll out on the sand. "Are you two ready for a puppet show?" His hands came together in an Unseal jutsu. "Crow! Black Ant! Salamander!"

With each word, each of the three scrolls' seals exploded into smoke.

As it billowed into the air, Fumiko realized on some level that she hadn't brought anything but a kunai to a fight against the person that had managed to defeat Gaara of the Desert in the middle of a desert, but at the same time, she just didn't care. Fumiko glanced down at the kunai in her hand, and then raised it defensively in front of her chest, still just behind Kankuro.

The smoke faded away to reveal Kankuro's three puppets, already clattering and hooked to multiple nearly invisible chakra strings.

"I'll say it again," Kankuro snarled. "Hand over Gaara- now!"

"The puppet master jutsu, eh?" the short one mused.

The tall one- Deidara- smirked. Then he jumped up onto his bird, steadying himself with one hand. "I'm going on ahead," he said. "Enjoy the show."

Fumiko sucked in a breath, trying to come up with something, think of something, do something as he started to turn away.

Before she could catch sense enough to react, Kankuro took control. "Think again!" he yelled, and jerked his hands to the side. Crow leapt to life, dashing forward with enough speed that Fumiko didn't see it at all, the bird stopped and then- there was a crashing sound, and Crow stopped in midair, something that looked like a bladed steel tail wrapped around it.

Fumiko gaped. It was impossible enough that Kankuro's puppet had been stopped so easily, but...

What was that thing?

"I don't like to wait," he said, and pulled off his straw hat, revealing five painfully tight lines of hair pulled back into a strange bun that still looked like the ends of ponytails. His face was masked, and he had wide but droopy eyes, skin squinted into hard, angry lines. "Or keep others waiting. So I'll make this short... and sweet."

"You moved as fast as Crow," Kankuro admitted grudgingly. "I'm impressed."

"The spider needs to be as fast as the fly," the stranger agreed.

Fumiko figured this would be the worst time to mention that most species of spiders caught flies in webs, and therefore didn't need to be very fast at all, since the fly wouldn't be able to move, so she kept her mouth shut.

She didn't really like that metaphor either, anyway.

"I remember now," Deidara said suddenly, still smirking. "Hmph- this jinchuuriki is supposed to have a couple of siblings and a lover. And one of his siblings is some kind of... puppet master." He said those words with contempt, like Kankuro was some little kid pretending to be Kazekage. "That must be you, I guess. Hmph. Your name's, uh, Kantoru, right? Or Kantura. Kanchi, or something?"

Deidara had laughter in his voice.

"It's Kankuro!" 

He swung his arms to the side and released the chakra strings holding his puppet so that it fell apart, out of the Akatsuki's tail's grip. It reformed on the ground a few yards away.

"Ahh, and you must be the girl I saw earlier. The lover." Deidara said, seemingly unconcerned. "Sasori's spies didn't say much about you, I'm afraid. Hmph."

Crow dashed forward into the air again, only to be smashed back into the sand by the Akatsuki's metal tail.

"Forget about him," the Akatsuki said. His voice was hoarse and gravelly, not like Gaara's, but like he swallowed rocks and bits of iron on a daily basis. "I'm your opponent now. Deidara, quit gawking and get out of here. You're in the way."

His metal tail slithered about in front of his face. People didn't just have tails- especially not metal ones that moved so quickly. Actually, the jointed, bladed limb looked almost like one of Crow's...

"Fine. I'll leave you to it, then. Hmph."

Fumiko's brain snapped into focus. She couldn't freeze up, she couldn't hesitate, not like she had before, she would only have a few seconds. Without really thinking about it, about the fact that she wasn't aiming at a wooden target, Fumiko spun the kunai in her hand, reared her arm back and threw it.

Thankfully the metal tail didn't slap it away.

For a second she thought, ohsugarI'mactuallygoingtohithim! But then the bird jerked, just barely, enough that the kunai cut the long lock of blond hair hovering above his eye, slicing the bottom half straight off. She felt sick because she wished it had hit him where she'd aimed; in the center of his neck, because it would have been over.

Deidara's face twisted and he whipped around to look at her.

Although she didn't need to use hand seals for her jutsu, Fumiko had discovered that they made them stronger. It was a delicate balance, because if she closed her gates it was harder to spread out her jutsu but it was concentrated and stronger. Especially Hare. A well-balanced Hare sign with a partially closed First Gate made for a very powerful Genjutsu in her case.

Her fingers twisted together and Deidara was trapped.

"Deidara," the other Akatsuki said impatiently. "Deidara, get going."

A stray piece of hair fell out of the bang now covering only half of his eye, fluttering on the airless wind. The rest had already floated to the sand below, and the kunai was lost in the dunes. Hopefully she hadn't blown her only chance.

But Deidara was susceptible. He was subconsciously- like any trained jonin-level shinobi- trying to break her Genjutsu in the way that you would break an ordinary dojutsu style Genjutsu- by disrupting his chakra flow. Except that Fumiko's worked a little differently- she wasn't actually using her eyes.

Sure, it helped when they looked her in the eye, since she didn't have to chase them down with chakra and could set it inside them easily- which was physically exhausting- but Fumiko didn't necessarily need eye contact, nor did she control the viewer's chakra flow. Her genjutsu was wilder, uncontrolled, just like her chakra, flowing through a system that didn't belong to it, stalling the viewer's chakra and swarming over it, controlling the five senses itself instead of suggesting it to the viewer's.

Fumiko hadn't known that's what she had been doing until she had further developed it and realized she could manipulate a genjutsu even if someone was trying to break it by disrupting their chakra.

Pain still worked. Outside pain, if done by a mind leery of genjutsu and well-versed in it, could still be used as release. But Deidara didn't seem familiar with non-dojutsu Genjutsu techniques.

Thank Kami.

Fumiko pressed her Hare together. If it broke, then there would be no precise control, and the genjutsu would be easier to break if he figured it out.

Fumiko felt herself jerked backwards. A split second later, the ground where she had been standing exploded into dust, which faded to reveal the very long metal tail embedded in the ground that had stretched to cut her in half. Fumiko bit her lip and closed her eyes, focusing all her attention on the erratic chakra that was Deidara's. She could monitor what he was seeing and how he was reacting to it.

He was seeing an expanse of empty desert. This was a completely inoffensive jutsu; his teammate had yelled at him again and he had left the fight far behind, the boy with the puppets and the girl who had thrown a kunai. That irritated him; he pinched his sliced hair with the tips of his fingers and scoffed, muttering to himself that the next time he saw that idiot girl he would explode her, hmph.

He suspected nothing so far, so Fumiko allowed slightly more than her subconscious to pay attention to Kankuro, although her eyes remained shut.

From what she could hear, Kankuro was distracting the Akatsuki man with his Iron Maiden technique, judging by the sounds of flying weapons in the air around her. It didn't seem to be working. Fumiko's breathing shallowed slightly, she was completely vulnerable- she would have to trust Kankuro completely to protect her, as he already had, pulling her out of harm's way.

Which meant she could not be useless.

Slowly, Fumiko began to warp her genjutsu, just slightly enough that Deidara wouldn't notice. She lowered the Yin strength of it and manipulated Yang until she could feel it overlapping his. Carefully, Fumiko envisioned his body, the way he moved, the minute movements that directed his bird, all taken from a few precious minutes of observing his mind's reactions to his environment.

In reality, his bird began to move at a slow, jerky pace towards the ground. If she could get Gaara away from him, then maybe she would be able to hurt Deidara's mind and maybe immobilize him, but at the very least force his Yang chakra away from Gaara's to throw him back a little, and dispel his bird, make him useless, too far away. Then Kankuro could focus on the one, and she could dispel her genjutsu and take Gaara and... and...

Fumiko bit her bottom lip harder until she tasted blood. And then what? Run? That was all she could do. It would have to work. Hadn't Baki said he was sending a squad? Run until they caught up. Yes. It would have to work. She couldn't jolt him too soon, couldn't...

"Fumiko! Get out of the way!"

Her mind had drifted from Kankuro's battle; she'd been focused completely on moving Deidara, warping his reality to make him move, without alerting him and without dropping him too hard and waking him up because then there would be more explosions. It was tiring and there was blood on her chin and her Hare was starting to shake-

She was slammed into from the side. Her Hare fell apart and her concentration snapped like a twig as she skidded across the sand and it dug into her cuts and into her eyes and mouth. The Genjutsu whirled violently for just a second and then it was over.

There was an outraged cry. Deidara.

Sugar, sugar, sugar. Fumiko struggled to her hands and knees, spitting sand, and opened her streaming eyes. Deidara had broken free but was disoriented, and his bird was in pieces on the ground. Gaara's body was sprawled almost a yard away. She stumbled to her feet, barely avoiding the killer tail that tried to stab her halfway there.

She had no time to worry about Deidara, who was also getting up, so she reached down to pick Gaara up and managed to sling his arm around her shoulder before suddenly she was crushed by that tail, that so-fast tail that wrapped around her body and squeezed until she lost the breath in her body. It rose into the air. Fumiko screamed and flailed and beat at it with her one free hand but it didn't budge.

Gaara was on the ground far below her windmilling legs. He was still unconscious.

Fumiko swore for the first time ever. "Damn you!"

Nearby, Kankuro wobbled back to his feet, hand clutching at his chest. The fabric of his shirt was ripped there. Fumiko realized, writhing in the tail's grip, that he must have pushed her out of it's way again.

"Put me down!"

Deidara got to his feet, wiping his sleeves to rid himself of sand and clay. "So, a Genjutsu, hmph? Man, I really hate that."

"At least you don't keep people waiting," the shorter Akatsuki member muttered at her.

"No danna! That totally wasn't even my fault at all!"

"Make another flying bird and then bring the jinchuriki back to the base." he said rather than responding to his protest. "And don't keep me waiting, Deidara. I don't want to have to watch your back for you this entire fight."

"Hmph. Fine, whatever."

"No! You stay away from him!" Fumiko cried.

The tail tightened. Fumiko gasped in pain, breathless now.

"And now," the puppet beneath her, because Fumiko was sure that's what he was now, said, "For the real grand finale."

...

~ "Okay." Gaara seemed uncertain, but shrugged it off lightly and turned instead to the post they were practicing on. It stood a good six or seven feet away. From his pouch- a little thing attached to his obi underneath the poncho-shawl- he drew three kunai blades, fingers hooked into the circles welded onto the hilts. "Well, um, take one of these." ~

...

"That's your third bowl of chili," Temari observed. "Don't you want a glass of water?"

"Not really."

"Hmm," she hummed, not really impressed at all as Mai finished off the last of her bowl, scraping out the bottom with her spoon for the last few spicy drops and shoveling it into her mouth. "That's not very ladylike, you know."

Mai said cheerfully, "Screw you."

Temari sighed, reaching for her cup of tea. "Just watching you is making me thirsty-"

There was a cracking sound, like breaking china. Mai's ears twitched. The ceramic bowl clinked as it touched the table. Eishi looked up, slurping noodles from his Yakisoba. Shiragiku looked up from a flower he was somehow tending a few feet away, sitting on the ground. A daisy or something. He hadn't ordered anything.

Temari's cup had cracked down the middle, a hairline fracture like a spiderweb.

"That's weird." Eishi slurped up the last noodle and swallowed. "Did you even touch it?"

"No," Temari said, bewildered.

"You know, that's considered bad luck," Shiragiku said quietly.

Mai snorted. "Nah. There's no such thing as bad omens. It's all just a bunch of stupid superstition."

...

~ "Always aim," Gaara said, "Just in any direction they're about to move, not at them necessarily. But... uh, right now, just try to hit the post," he said with a sheepish little smile, and Fumiko laughed, drawing her arm back. ~

...

Kankuro moved his fingers.

Ant and Crow spat blades of poisoned senbon needles and modified kunai, aiming probably at the joints of the tail that held her so tightly. She felt the limbs of her body whipped around as the tail spun to block it, whirling and whirling and whirling every which way until she was sure her head was going to be torn off. The sound of metal hitting metal filled her ears. At least two kunai sliced her face, opening up two small rivers of blood that dripped down her face and chin.

As soon as it stopped, Fumiko left hovering in front of the puppet's body, she promptly threw up.

From the numbness in her cheeks, Fumiko assumed- hoped- that that particular poison had been Kankuro's specialty paralytic and not his lethal poison. 

Fumiko coughed, or at least tried to- everything hurt, her bones and her skin and her joints screamed as he squeezed, and she could no longer breathe, the pain was excruciating; and now the numbness was spreading into her chest. Whatever it was, the poison would spread fast now.

"Fumiko!"

"You have talent," the Akatsuki member admitted. "You might even win against a different opponent. Those puppets of yours, with all their hidden poison mechanisms... they're not hidden from me."

Now Deidara was starting to reform a bird out of leftover clay. He threw it forward and made a sign, and with a puff of smoke it was full sized- albeit smaller than the first, it was an exact replica besides that.

Fumiko could no longer struggle. She had decided it was a paralytic.

The tail flung forward and she hit the ground limply beside Kankuro's feet. The sudden absence of the crushing force left her dizzy, or maybe that was the poison.

Lying against the ground like she was, Fumiko viewed the rest of the fight from a sideways angle. Kankuro's puppets were quickly destroyed, the last of his hidden weapons depleted. Fumiko assumed the only reason she'd been released- and in fact the only reason she had been held so long- was because she had been poisoned by flyaway weapons and couldn't move.

"Crow! Black Ant! Salamander!"

The masked Akatsuki chuckled slightly as Deidara's bird once again took flight, Gaara in tow wrapped inside his tail. "You must be wondering how I can anticipate every attack your puppets make. Crow, Black Ant, Salamander... The answer is quite simple, really... I'm the one who created them."

This meant nothing, really, to Fumiko, but it certainly meant something to Kankuro. He flinched backward a couple of steps.

"I know I promised I would finish this quickly and not keep you waiting," the Akatsuki continued, "But facing one of my own disciples using my old toys... I can't resist savoring the moment."

"So then..." Kankuro hesitated, face coated with disbelief. Fumiko couldn't see him very well. "You have to be... The legendary master craftsman of the puppet corp... The great Sasori of the Red Sand."

S-Sasori?

"I'm honored that my name is so well-known. Even to a child such as you."

"You deserted us twenty years ago." Kankuro's voice was hard. He seemed to get over his own surprise and slid in front of Fumiko's still body. "Why do you come back to us now?"

Fumiko watched Gaara disappear into nothing more than shimmering mirage. She felt, barely, a tear slip down the side of her face. "Gaara... no..."

She knew intuitively somehow that if she lost Gaara now, he would die.

"What's the point of asking questions," Sasori said calmly, "If you're about to die?"

Suddenly Kankuro gasped and fell to his knees, then onto his stomach. His body started to shake.

"Kank... uro..." Fumiko's voice was barely higher than a whisper, and she couldn't really move her lips very well.

"The poison is circulating, eh?" Sasori said like he was agreeing with Kankuro's pained grunt. "It's over!"

The tail dashed forward, whipping like a cobra, towards her. Fumiko couldn't move, she had no way to, and she was sprawled out in the open. The blade arced over Kankuro and she knew, deep in her gut, that if it scratched her, she was finished. Not like she could do anything with that information.

As it raced closer, all Fumiko could think was, Is this it? Are... are we really... going to die here?

"... Gaara... I'm... sorry."

The blade, inches away from the nape of her neck, hesitated almost, wavered for just a second like it had stopped. There was a cracking noise, like splintering wood. Something hard and rough rubbed across her throat. For a fleeting moment, warmth enveloped her, warmth like clouds of hot Suna air clinging to her arms and chest and face like glitter- almost an embrace.

For only that single second, Fumiko felt like she was being drawn into her mother's arms.

She choked against the tightening grip around her neck and the sudden impossible impact of that blade's tip, except that there wasn't any pain from the sharp edge, only a solid hit like she'd been punched in the throat.

It flung her back. Blindly, sensing and grasping for the sudden infallible need to survive, like she needed blood and water and sleep, Fumiko reached out with her chakra and felt it touch; she was midair now as it dug out from the sand to drive her back into it- she pictured blood, and skin, and bone, and a broken walnut necklace.

Fumiko was slammed into the ground again. It hurt so bad, but she didn't cry out or lose focus because if she lost focus she would die.

The blade withdrew. Fumiko painted blood and a partially dismembered head barely attached by a few gruesome strings of muscle, and grisly wet white bone, and a gaping mouth bleeding red and a torn throat damp with blood that stained the girl's white shirt and brown cloak, dark purple poison seeping into and through the growing pool of blood, swirling out of her mouth and her neck.

The blade withdrew. Fumiko didn't dare make a sound. Whatever it was around her throat- sand, she realized- melted away, trickling off her skin.

What had that been? It was almost like... almost like Gaara's Sand Armor shield. But Gaara was unconscious, and no hug from him had ever felt like that... so maternal in nature, nurturing and careful and final and warm. Fumiko didn't think it was even possible for Gaara to coat another person in Sand Armor- it was an almost uncontrollable reaction to threats and pain.

Satisfied that the imagined blood dripping down his blade was real, Sasori sent it whizzing through the now hot air toward Kankuro, but Kankuro must have moved his fingers with the last of his waning strength, because Crow's dismembered head flew to intercept it, blocking and even throwing the tail back. One of Crow's bladed arms zipped toward's Sasori's face and he tilted his head up so that the knifelike blade sheared the tip of his mask off and nothing more.

The blade embedded itself in the sand a few yards away as Kankuro's chakra failed him.

"Since you want to live so badly, I won't finish you." Sasori said, almost gently. "I'll let the poison take it's course. You'll wish I hadn't. Your suffering will be unimaginable. But it will be over in less than three days."

Sasori turned away and started to trudge through the desert. Fumiko released her strained Genjutsu.

She hadn't even used seals for that one. It had been just like the old days, when Fumiko tried to trick Jonin into letting her sit in on Gaara's tests- if they had noticed, even her most potent jutsu could be shattered. But they usually hadn't noticed.

And neither had Sasori.

Fumiko suspected that had something to do with his eyes- if the entire body was a puppet, then so were the eyes, and therefore a visual jutsu wouldn't work on him... so he was entirely unprepared to be attacked in such a way. But inside the hard wood-and-skin shell there was another system, or at least part of a system, that she had honed into.

Four or five yards in front of her, Kankuro's body went limp as he lost consciousness.

A few frozen hours later, comforted by darkness and the disembodied voices of what had to have been the pursuit squad, Fumiko's did the same.

...

~ And her aim was terrible. ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst Angst Angst


	3. Sunlight

...

~ "Yaay, sunlight!" ~

...

"Incoming shinobi," Mai said sharply, although she was fairly certain one of them, somehow, was Naruto.

But she had just seen Naruto. A day ago. In Konoha. He had just returned home. So what would he be doing a day out en route to Sunagakure? That was the only reason she was wary. Maybe it wasn't Naruto, but an enemy sent to intercept the sister of the fifth Kazekage of the Sand?

Temari stopped walking, as did Eishi and Shiragiku and Mai's genin sensei.

Mai didn't need a kunai to take on most opponents. Actually, aside from her twin swords Fumiko had gotten forged for her, Mai tended to rely more on brute strength and fire-styled ninjutsu to fight enemies. So usually she didn't have any weapon pouches on her aside from her bag over her shoulder, which held only a few paper bombs and some razor wire.

She drew her swords from their sheathes. Eishi and Shiragiku both instinctively pulled out kunai. For Genin teammates, they had good enough instincts. Thy didn't panic like some others would, nor did they question how she knew. They only reacted.

"Temari!"

Mai relaxed slightly, straightening and letting her blades fall mostly to her sides.

"Naruto. Sakura. Kakashi." she said, raising two fingers off her hilt in greeting. "What the heck are all you doing out here?"

...

~ Fumiko could almost hear Gaara smile. She did, however, hear him laugh, low and rich and content, in his Gaara-way. ~

...

Fumiko was slow in waking up. When she did, her nose was sunburned, her skin tingled all over from some kind of fading paralytic, and she was alone in a hospital bed in a rough green nightgown. There was a single IV drip taped to her wrist and nothing else.

She sat up slowly, muscles protesting. Her neck pulsed and when she reached up to touch it, Fumiko realized her throat was wrapped all around in thick bandages. She frowned, mind working sluggishly. Where was everyone? Why did she have paralytic poison side effects? What had happened to her neck?

Maybe she had been walking in the desert with Gaara or something and fell asleep, and hit her neck on something? It was a long shot, but it was possible. Dehydration would have been cause for light sleep-inducing medications, which could be mistaken by someone who knew about both for a paralytic wearing off.

Gaara was probably working, or else he would be there. Fumiko smiled, lying back against the bed. For once, she was going to listen to the doctors, and stay in bed rather than getting up and walking around. She probably hadn't been sleeping all that long, so sooner or later a doctor would come in and explain what had happened.

Fumiko closed her eyes.

And then, about four or five minutes later, suddenly sat up again with an unholy shriek as she remembered everything.

...

~ Fumiko grinned and raised her hands to the sky, like she was grabbing at liquid rays of light, because it was golden and coated with enough blowing sand to make it tangible.

"It's so warm," she said, laughter in her voice. ~

...

"Gaara?" Temari burst out. "You mean he's been-?"

Kakashi nodded, and Temari just looked away, grinding her teeth.

Mai stared at Sakura, and then at Naruto, and finally back to Kakashi. Gaara- kidnapped? That wasn't possible, not at all, nobody could beat Gaara, nobody at all, not her, not Kimimaru, not Seimei, nobody; Fumiko had-

Oh Kami damn it.

Fumiko.

"We're two and a half days out from Suna," Kakashi said, raising a hand in the direction of the forest behind the Suna ninja. "We should hurry."

There was a clanging of metal as Mai's swords dropped completely to the ground and she blurred for a half second before wringing Kakashi's face down to her eye level by yanking on his vest. She was blind with anger but realized that he had let her.

"Wait! What happened?"

"I don't really know," Kakashi said coolly. "The message scroll only included that Gaara was taken prisoner by a member of the Akatsuki. Nothing more, nothing less, I'm afraid. Now, if you would let me go, we could go on to the village and ask someone there."

Mai growled and then shoved him away, turning to pick up her blades and sheath them.

When nobody said anything more, she turned back to them, fire in her eyes and in her voice. "Well? Are you coming or not?"

She jumped into the trees, and wordlessly a few moments later, the others in the Leaf and Sand parties followed they dashed through the trees, Mai's chest thudded erratically, like her heart was trying to kill itself in a blaze of glory.

After a long, long while, when the sun went down and the trees became shaded monsters with knarled claws, Mai realized that the only person keeping pace with her was Naruto- he tree-hopped right beside her if not a little behind. He was breaking formation with his teammates, as was she, except that her team had the sense not to nag her about it.

"Naruto, will you come on already?" Sakura barked. "Stop getting ahead of us!"

"I can't take this anymore!" he yelled back, and Sakura was finally silent. "I know why they're after Gaara and me. It's not like it's a mystery or anything. You know too- don't you, Sakura? There's no point hiding it."

He paused. The cold air whipped through Mai's close, and through the pain of her own clenched teeth, she listened. Why did Naruto care so much? Why did he run so hard for someone he had first met trying to destroy his village?

"The spirit of the nine-tailed fox is sealed inside of me. Gaara and I are the same... we both have monsters locked up inside of us." Mai almost missed her next branch but recovered at the last second. Naruto clenched his shirt. "That's what these bastards are after."

He shot past her, bark crumbling under his shoe as he took off.

"And that's the worst part about it!" he snarled as Mai pushed chakra into her feet to catch up, flinging his arm out. "To them, we're just monsters. All those bastards see is a means to an end! Everything about us... was exactly the same. And now, he's a target of the Akatsuki! One more thing we have in common. And why should his life be so full of misery all the time? Why is it always him?"

Mai looked down, teeth locked so tightly together she was almost surprised they didn't splinter. Her fists clenched, fingernails drawing blood from the palms of her hands.

He was right. Gaara had had a horrible, terrible life. His father had tried to kill him numerous times; he was shunned by his family and his best friend's family and every other family in the entire village for the longest time. Even after Mai came around, even after Mai realized Gaara could be a source of comfort as well as a source of terror, even after she had defended his name tooth and nail with blood and fists... And then the Fourth had died.

And his hatred vanished, leaving icy cold holes inside him. There was only Fumiko to comfort him then- only Fumiko knew what to say and what to do for him. And then, and then, things started to go his way, and he became a sensei, and bonded with people outside of his trusted circle, and then all of a sudden he was Kazekage, and why shouldn't he have been?

Gaara was Kazekage.

He had finally, crying blood and bearing scars, looked at sideways from across the street, had finally achieved his greatest dreams.

And now...

Gaara was her older brother. Gaara was her sister's best friend. Gaara had taught her how to defend herself. Gaara was family, and a friend, and a sparring partner, and her sensei, and most of all, he was her Kazekage- her Shorty-sama. The idea of him being dead was...

was...

Impossible. Every step of the way he had pounded that into her, that above all, he would be there for Mai when her father was not, as a sensei, as a brother, as a friend; not just for his girlfriend's kid sister but for a person with feelings and thoughts in her head. He had trusted her enough to sign off on her ANBU training. She had trusted him enough to go to him for help when she was being bullied.

Gaara had always been there, Gaara and Fumiko, the unbreakable, impossible duo, the perfect team, him and her, black and white, cold and warmth. Mai's brother and Mai's sister. Mai knew both of them, or at least she liked to think she did, and she knew... deep down in her gut, she knew that if either were to die, the other wouldn't truly survive it.

Mai would lose her brother and her sister at the same time.

How unfair was that? 

Life's a bitch.

...

~ "It's always warm," Gaara said with amusement. "In fact, it's always several degrees hotter than Konoha's hottest heat spells. And they get their heat spells from here. You see the sun every day." ~

...

Footsteps rang through the unusually empty halls of Sunagakure's hospital. Thump clunk thump clunk thump clunk.

Whoever had dragged her back to Suna from the desert had at least been kind enough to grab her prosthetic as well. It was full of sand, and for good reason; she had been thrown around quite a bit in that battle.

Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. The only reason she didn't fall over and puke and puke and puke until there was nothing left in her stomach to churn was because she had to know if Kankuro was okay. One day? Two? Three? Had Sasori been telling the truth? Just how long had they been out there in that desert?

Was Kankuro dead?

Was Gaara?

Fumiko's steps faltered, no, no; Gaara was alive, she knew it, she could feel it in her bones that he wasn't dead. But she had a terrible, terrible feeling, the same feeling she'd had passing out in the desert before the sand inside her necklace charm had saved her life- that it didn't matter what she felt now. That everything would end the same way.

The worst way.

Kankuro. Fumiko forced herself to think about Kankuro, who had been poisoned, who could be dead, who could be dying. It was a horrible thought, but somehow, secretly, it was a better one.

She didn't even know where she was running to. The emergency wing was probably the best place to look for a poisoned man, so that was where her feet turned and where she stopped and where she ripped open door after door after door, startling patients and nurses and doctors.

Finally, she ripped another door open, and saw Baki, standing over a hospital bed, speaking in quiet, urgent tones to the medical ninja.

"Kankuro!" she cried, and ran inside to the bed, rushing past Baki and past the medic-ninja dressed in formal red and white.

He was lying there, not quite peaceful, nor was he asleep. Fumiko could see it in the pained lines of his face. His chest was wrapped in thin bandages, probably more for appearance than anything else judging by the size of the scratch she'd seen in the midst of battle.

"Oh Kami." Fumiko gripped the railings. "Kankuro!"

"Fumiko, what are you doing out of bed?"

Fumiko stiffened, wiping at her watering eyes and straightening. "I'm here to help. Where... where are the results of his blood and urine tests? How long has it been? Is he conscious?"

"It's only been about a day," the medic-nin answered almost immediately, signing off into a corner for someone to get the results of whatever tests they had already taken. It must have been nothing more than a force of habit- at some point or another she had most likely been his superior. "He is, but he's just barely able to respond to us. His condition's worsened since yesterday."

"O-oh. Has there been any breakdown of the poison?"

"We barely managed to extract any. We plan on using what we have to test out possible antidotes."

"You're going to try and make antidotes without making an analysis of the poison we're trying to get rid of?"

"There isn't much."

"It's too long a shot. He was certain..."

"You'll die in less than three days."

"Fumiko-san..." Baki started to say, and she could hear in his voice what he wanted to talk about. Her fingers clenched on the sheets beside Kankuro's still form.

"He was certain this is going to kill him," she said instead of responding. "The only reason I'm not in this state as well is that I tricked him into thinking I was in this state."

"How?" Baki asked.

"Genjutsu. There was Deidara and one other person-"

"Deidara?"

"The blond one with the birds. Him and one other, Sasori, a defect from our own village."

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"S-Sasori?!"

Fumiko nodded. Baki looked off to the side. "I see. So he's wrapped up in all of this."

"Baki-sama...?" one of the medical ninja said questioningly. He didn't seem to know who Sasori really was, either. Fumiko knew from a little bit of time spent flipping through the older bingo books just for fun that Sasori had been a prestiged member of the puppet corp, but apparently he was a bigger deal than plain book text could really convey.

Baki said nothing more. Fumiko wiped more tears from her eyes as he swept out of the room.

...

~ "That's the point. I see the sun every single day... um, unless there's a sandstorm or it's raining." ~

...

Awhile later, Baki returned. Shortly after that, the doors opened again, and Fumiko went from robotically wiping the sweat of Kankuro's face and neck and injecting specific painkillers to stepping back as Chiyo and Ebisu came up to Kankuro's bedside.

"Ah, we were hoping you would come," Baki said, relieved and jittery. "Please, come in. I'm sure you know our guests."

"Hi, Chiyo, Ebisu," Fumiko greeted quietly, then flinched at Chiyo's stern glare. Chiyo had always disliked her- for commissioning certain plants for her paints, for heading medical corp at such a young age, and well, Fumiko wasn't sure why. Chiyo didn't seem to like very many people. "I mean, Chiyo-baa-sama."

"Why," Ebisu said from over Kankuro's headrest, "that looks very much like..."

"Yes, it's Kankuro," Baki confirmed with a nod. "The older brother of the Kazekage."

"Ooh," Ebisu said. "So I was right, then."

"Hmm," Chiyo mused. "I assume you've examined his blood?"

"Yes- here are the results."

Chiyo scanned the sheet. Fumiko had already looked them over, and eventually was forced to admit that this kind of poison was beyond her. She'd tried all of the herbs and medicines and stabilization seals she could in the short time Baki had been gone, but the problems the poison were causing his body were so complex that each individual component of any medicine she tried- for muscle growth, for blood cell growth, for anything- seemed to negatively affect another symptom.

It was nearly impossible to help him without hurting him. Fumiko's specialty was wounds, not poison. She even dealt better in diseases than poison; the only thing she knew about poisons were the basics that Kankuro had taught her. But Chiyo was a poison expert.

"Fascinating," Chiyo said. "I've never seen this."

"Yes," the medic-nin said. "We believe it's a new poison."

"Hmm. Any luck finding an antidote?"

Fumiko shook her head. "We've tried everything we have. But so far, nothing even makes a dent in it. The poison is affecting his muscles, I think, but everything we try only strengthens a different side effect."

"Of course." Chiyo said. "It explains why he let him linger this way instead of just killing him off. He's confident we won't be able to counteract his poison. To make a man suffer like this... how typical of Sasori that is."

...

~ "I- what? Now it makes even less sense that you said hi to the sun."

...

Instead of sleeping- Fumiko doubted she would be able to- she used what they had completed on the breakdown of the poison given to her by a medic-nin to create a testing seal. It was next to impossible to recreate perfectly but Fumiko was wired, and she was tense and restless, and all of her focus went entirely into the task.

Chiyo hadn't said anything when she silently gave the scroll to her early the next morning, but immediately began to mix poisons and plants and extracts in little glass beakers. About five or six potions in, Fumiko was growing even more restless, squeezing her arms tightly with her fingers and biting her bottom lip and cheeks raw.

A small explosion phoomed on the scroll, creating heat and a red-orange blast of flames. Then it died to nothing but a bit of fire that burnt itself out, and a small pillar of smoke followed.

"Hmm," Chiyo muttered in frustration. "That one didn't work either."

It was the third day since Gaara's fight with Deidara had occurred, and the second since her and Kankuro's fight with Sasori and Deidara. Dark purple and black bruises shaped like the puppet's jointed tail had deepened on her arms and chest and back from Sasori's crushing force, along with a pitch black bruise on her throat that had been revealed as soon as she took off the bandage.

Her ribs and arms hurt bad, they were wrapped; probably sprained at the joints and rib bones or broken or both, maybe, since some parts hurt worse than others, but she didn't really care enough to run an accurate diagnostic that would take only seconds and get her arms put in slings. Her ankle hurt, too, from the fall dow the stairs three days ago. It hurt to move at all but she ignored it.

The only thing left of her charm necklace when she had woken up was a fishline string on her neck and a carved-down cork dotted with years-dry glue still hanging from it. The walnut was gone entirely, pierced and shattered by that deadly poisoned blade that should have taken her head off just like she had made Sasori believe it had. The pieces and the sand were probably still out in the desert, buried and lost forever.

A few more failed experiments later, Chiyo moved back to Kankuro's bedside to try and draw more poison. Ebisu, the other medic-nin, Baki, and Fumiko herself followed until Kankuro was surrounded on all sides.

"Tell me, what other methods have you tried?" Ebisu asked while Chiyo worked.

"As a matter of fact, we've asked for a specialist to be sent from Konohagakure," Baki answered. "Perhaps it would be best to wait for them to arrive."

Fumiko had already known that they were sending a team out to help with Gaara's rescue. That coupled with the specialist request and the various notes that had been exchanged back and forth with Lee over the last two years led her to believe that Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto would be in the village soon, unless, of course, that small sandstorm-esque breeze kicked up any more.

"Hmph!" Chiyo grunted, startling Fumiko out of her thoughts. "You would have us depend on others? It's because of your dependence on this alliance with a foreign land that our own people have become backward and lazy."

Chiyo said the word alliance like someone might say fungus.

Baki spread out his hands. "No, we don't depend on them." He put a hand on his chest. "I surely wouldn't go that far."

"Kankuro's partly to blame," Ebisu pointed out in a completely neutral tone. "For pursuing the enemy too far, he recklessly exposed himself to danger. Something a shinobi should never do."

"He was just trying to get Gaara back," Fumiko murmured. "We both were."

The group of shinobi either ignored her or didn't hear her. "Instead of trusting and depending on Konoha to come to our rescue, we should concentrate on training our own people to take care of themselves. In any case, this alliance is just a pipe dream. They are they, and we are we. And no alliance will change that."

"That's not true," Fumiko said in a slightly louder tone of voice, enough that she caught Chiyo's attention. "We have lots of friends in the Leaf. Me and Gaara both. They'll help us."

"Pah! If they send anyone at all, it won't be a specialist, just some useless underling, just as a simple formality."

Baki flinched. "I can't believe they''d ever do that," he said weakly.

"It's the way of the world," Chiyo said with finality. "Everyone only looks out for themselves."

Fumiko shook her head, biting her lip again. "No. They'll send Uzumaki Naruto."

...

~ "I didn't say hi to the sun. I said yaay, sunlight!"

"Yes, but you also say yaay, Gaara!" ~

...

Kankuro's condition had steadily decreased over the course of the last one and a half days, and then suddenly now, halfway through the second day, dropped so suddenly it left all of them shocked and useless.

Chiyo felt his wrist with one hand. "This is not good," she said. "Poisons are my specialty, but this one's beyond even me."

"L-lady Chiyo," Baki said, sounding unsure of himself.

"He's got a day at best."

"Actually, from the looks of it, he'll be extremely lucky to survive 'till tomorrow, if you ask me."

Fumiko looked at the siblings quickly and then glanced away, back down to Kankuro's face.

Did I kill you? She thought hopelessly.

Fumiko had done what she thought was best during that fight, but had it really been the best? She had been trying so hard to save Gaara and still failed, leaving Kankuro to protect her as she made mistake after mistake. She'd almost gotten Gaara back with her genjutsu, but almost wasn't good enough, and because she'd used her genjutsu, Kankuro had been poisoned.

And then, when everything else fell apart, she'd saved herself.

Now she was on autopilot.

It was horrible because Kankuro was almost a distraction; she genuinely hoped he didn't die, but his pain was useful, she had something to focus on, something to work with, something she could touch and fix and help. Not like...

Autopilot. Autopilot. Autopilot.

"Sasori's outdone himself this time. His skills have improved considerably."

"Surely we can do something," Baki insisted.

"Well," Chiyo said sourly. "There's one who's more versed in antidotes than I. That old queen of slugs Tsunade of Konoha. She was a thorn in my side in the era of the great war, coming up with antidotes for every kind of poison I could throw at her. Who knows, now that you're such great friends with them, perhaps we could send word to her to come help us with her expertise."

"But Lady Tsunade is now Hokage of Konoha," Baki said softly. "She must look after her own village- she can't just drop everything. Besides, even if she were to come, what good could she do? It takes three days to travel here from Konoha."

"I know that," Chiyo scoffed, wrinkling her nose with distaste. "I'm not a fool, I wasn't seriously suggesting we summon her here. That'd be the last thing I want, I can't bear that old Slug Queen."

...

~ And hearing Gaara say 'Yaay, Gaara!' and trying to imitate her voice was just so, so funny that she broke down laughing, right then and there on the balcony, with her arms in the air, grabbing sunlight. ~

...

"All right!" Naruto breathed. "We've finally reached the desert."

Mai couldn't help but agree. The desert was a wide, blank expanse. As long as you weren't stupid enough to completely ignore holes in the sand, it held nothing from you: no hidden roots in the ground, no wild boars, no tiny whiplike branches. Just sand, if you could bear to walk on it.

"Sunagakure is just up ahead," Temari said. "Otokaze, Mai, Eishi, Shiragiku. We should take the lead from here on out."

Mai and her Genin teammates and sensei nodded. "Hai."

Mai turned to glare at the Konoha ninja, daring them to disagree.

"Lead on," Kakashi said easily.

"Temari-sensei," Shiragiku said softly. "Forgive me, but that wind from earlier..."

"I know." Temari shook her head and hefted her fan. "We're just going to have to hope for the best."

...

~ "What? What's so funny?" ~

...

Hoping for the best was a terrible idea.

Not two hours after Temari had uttered the words, Mai and all in her party found themselves crammed into a hole in a rock to avoid the whipping sand. Mai knew from Suna Genin Academy training that sandstorms too powerful could turn you around and blind you and get you lost, burrow into your throat until you choke and stay there until you pass out and die of dehydration, and begin to wear the skin off your bones until there's nothing left but a clean white skeleton.

Kami knew how many sandstorms had left those on her doorstep. The death toll of Suna civilians and shinobi alike ranged from about two to twenty people a year, depending on the force of the storms that inevitably picked up and what time of day they decided to rear their ugly heads.

Mai was completely not in the mood to wait out a sandstorm.

Patience, caution, and calmness. The three virtues of a good Sunagakure shinobi. The three virtues of a good Sunagakure ANBU agent. But Mai was both of those things and none of those virtues, and a damn good shinobi and ANBU agent as well, and so usually she screwed those rules to hell. Of course, there was a time and place for brashness. Mai wouldn't jeopardize a mission because she didn't want to wait out a sandstorm.

But this sandstorm was jeopardizing their mission.

Gaara was trapped somewhere, kidnapped and hell, probably already dead if those Akatsuki shinobi had any sense in their heads, and they were doing nothing but sitting like rats in a hole. Mai knew it was necessary but damn, it was frustrating. She wanted to check on her sister, and on Kankuro, and then she wanted to go rip off some black-and-red cloaked heads and charbroil them.

Mai scoffed quietly, horrified at the wetness in her eyes. Eishi seemed to notice and almost moved to put a hand on her shoulder but then hesitated and backed off, sitting back against the cave wall. Mai was curled tightly into herself with her back against the wall and her knees against her chest, playing viciously with a string of razor wire, wrapping and unwrapping it expertly around her fingers.

"We got this close to our target and we're just sitting here!" Naruto growled. He was sitting anxiously at the mouth of the pseudo-cave. "I can't stand this waiting!"

He made to lunge forward, but Kakashi caught his shoulder. "Naruto, for the last time, relax. There's nothing we can do."

"I know, but-!"

"Just be patient," Sakura said.

"Like hell I'm gonna be-"

"If you don't shut up right now, I'll push you out into that sandstorm myself and let you see how impossible it is!" Mai snarled loudly enough to startle everyone there except maybe Kakashi, who didn't move. She didn't bother to wipe the beading tears out of the corners of her eyes. "You think I wanna wait, huh? You think I want to be here, Uzumaki Naruto? Do you?"

"H-hey... Mai-chan..."

"Mai," she said shortly.

"Do you see, Naruto?" Sakura demanded. "You're not the only one who's worried!"

"The cardinal rule of traveling in the desert- if you hit a sandstorm, you stay put." Temari said tonelessly, like she was reciting from a textbook, which she was. Sunagakure: Knowing your Surroundings, to be exact. "You lose all your sense of direction in a storm like that. I've known many people that ended up lost in the desert and died of thirst."

She put on a weak smile before looking up to continue. "Don't worry; the storms we get at this time of year usually don't last very long."

Mai snorted and looked away.

Naruto finally looked away, scowling. "Well, I just hope you're right."

...

~ "I- you- Gaara," she said in a purposely low, somewhat-high-pitched-kind-of gravelly tone, "Yaay, Gaara!" 

"I- oh." ~

...

Kankuro had started screaming nearly three hours ago. It stopped every time they gave him painkillers, but even their highest strength doses seemed only to last fifteen to twenty minutes before he started up again. Fumiko was situated at his head, steadily flowing healing chakra into his throat every time he finished to keep it from getting too raw.

It was the third day now, barely at one in the morning, the fourth since Gaara had fallen from the sky.

Autopilot, Fumiko chided herself.

"Sedative!" she cried as he tried to shoot up again, small hands instinctively slamming down on Kankuro's shoulders. Seconds later somebody had swabbed his arm and injected a full dose of painkiller, and then Kankuro started to relax.

Fumiko wordlessly let go and began to heal his throat.

"As you can see, all we're able to do is ease his pain and try to help him rest." The medic-nin beside her shook his head. "At this stage, our only hope is the squad of Leaf shinobi who are due to arrive soon. That is, if Kankuro can survive until then. And if they brought an experienced poison specialist along with them."

"But right now there's a sandstorm outside the village, making the route from Konoha impassible." Baki said. "There's no telling how long they might be delayed if it keeps up."

Fumiko cringed.

"If that happens," said the medic-nin that helped her to hold Kankuro down when he acted up, "then all hope is lost."

"That we've sunk to this!" Chiyo said mournfully. "I never thought I'd see the day when we'd have to depend on the Leaf to help us!"

Fumiko wondered if she even cared about Kankuro at all. If Gaara were here-

"Autopilot," she whispered.

"Fumiko-sama?"

"Ahh, it's nothing."

"You must be weary, my sister," Ebisu said, putting an arm around Chiyo's shoulders. "Come, we'll find a seat outside. You haven't had a wink of sleep since yesterday."

Being tired had nothing to do with no sleep. At least, as far as Fumiko knew. Being tired came with a lot of things, but usually not with a lack of sleep, no, that only led to the body shutting down at random and often inconvenient times. But what did she know? Maybe she was different than everyone else.

"Relying on Konoha," Chiyo moaned as Ebisu seated her on the stone wraparound bench attached to the wall outside the emergency room. "It's pathetic."

As soon as they were out of earshot, Fumiko turned all of her attention back to Kankuro, who had maybe hours more to live at the most. Chiyo was so bitter, like dandelion greens and coffee, and right now Fumiko's inner block was wavering, and she didn't know how much it would take to topple her over.

...

~ Fumiko was still just laughing and laughing, and she could feel the sun crisping through her uncovered shirt; her cloak was being washed. But she didn't particularly care about sunburn.

They weren't even supposed to be here, they would probably be arrested if they were, this was a privately owned balcony, but it was the Fourth's. Well, they wouldn't arrest Gaara, and thinking about it, they wouldn't arrest her either. They had once, while she was looking around the Tower for him and accidentally wandered somewhere important, and then she had been kept in a boring little room with an armchair and a lamp and a bathroom with no windows.

Gaara had been very, very careful in doing what his father said for him to do for a few days, and then she had been fine, and then the guards that had arrested her never had been able to look at her again without turning green. 

She laughed. ~

...

Cresting over the final dune was like a breath of fresh air in Kankuro's fumy, oily puppet workshop.

They were tearing through the desert towards the gate, where shocked shinobi guards stood patrol by the opening.

"We've been expecting you. Come on, this way!"

They ran through the streets, which were strangely devoid of civilians, although Mai supposed they were all spooked and under a general curfew after what had happened. As they ran, the guard patrol shinobi briefed the seven of them on what had happened.

Mai exploded.

"They got Kankuro? That idiot!"

Without another word to anyone, Mai growled deep in her throat and detoured violently to step up onto a wall and then sprint up alongside it. The cries of her companions faded into nothing but a hot breeze.

Of course the Baka-Kankuro would go after them, but Mai hadn't expected Fumiko to be there as well. The guards hadn't known much about the incident except that both Kankuro and Fumiko had been carried back to the village unconscious, and that Kankuro was teetering on the verge of death. Kankuro's puppets had been brought back as well, destroyed and smashed to pieces.

Roof-hopping was faster than the street. You didn't have to go around anything or avoid anything, you could go anywhere you wanted at once so long as you had the chakra for the jump. Her vision tunneled in on the hospital and nothing else.

When she reached it, she almost howled. Stupid windows, stupid windows, stupid too small windows!

...

~ "It's not funny!" ~

...

Fumiko wasn't nearly as surprised as everyone else in the room when the back left corner of the roof suddenly imploded, dumping a red-and-black blur into the plaster.

"Baka-Kankuro! Fumiko!"

Mai was at her side in a second, except that she didn't look at her right away, instead scowling down at Kankuro's limp body. If it weren't for the heart monitor beeping away at the foot of the bed, he would have looked dead. They had just injected more painkillers minutes earlier and now he was barely responsive.

"Mai, is Saku-"

"Kankuro!"

Temari's voice rang through the emergency room as she and then Sakura ran through the opening into the emergency room, followed shortly by Uzumaki Naruto and Kakashi.

Chiyo suddenly reacted.

"Damn you!" she screamed, racing towards Kakashi with a sudden spike of Killer Intent. "Get ready to defend yourself or die!" There were a few startled gasps. Chiyo jumped into the air, coming down like she would hammer Kakashi's head in, still screaming, "Revenge at last!"

Uzumaki Naruto and his clones blocked her punch, but Chiyo kicked one and it exploded before she leapt back and tensed to jump again.

"Whaddaya think you're doing, attacking Kakashi-sensei like that?" he or maybe his shadow clone demanded.

"You wrinkly old prune!" the other Uzumaki Naruto finished as the shadow clone puffed away into smoke, dispelled.

"I haven't forgotten what you did," Chiyo growled. For a moment Fumiko thought she was talking to Uzumaki Naruto but then remembered she had been yelling at Kakashi. "I've waited for this day, White Fang of Konoha! The day I wreak vengeance on you for what you did to my son!"

Kakashi raised his hands placatingly. "No no no, you see, I'm not-"

"That's enough talk!" Chiyo raised her hands in a familiar style, and Fumiko realized with a start that she was planning to use the Puppet Master jutsu. She didn't see any puppets around, but she knew from Kankuro messing with people that the strings could be used to control minute body movements.

Suddenly Ebisu put an arm out in front of her.

"Take another look at the man, sis," he said. "Eh? It's true there's a resemblance, but this one is not the White Fang."

Kakashi laughed nervously, raising one hand a little more in greeting. Uzumaki Naruto still stood in front of him, face set in a scowl. "Uh... hello."

"Besides, as you know, the White Fang died long ago." Ebisu reminded her. "Remember? When you heard the news, you wept in frustration, because it meant you would never have your vengeance. Isn't that so, sis?"

She was silent for a moment, then she brought her hands together.

"Oh, well. Never mind!" she sang, then burst into laughter.

Suddenly Kankuro started screaming again. Fumiko whipped around, confused, because they had just given him medication, and he shouldn't have been able to feel anything at all, let alone move to grab his own throat, salivating like he was choking-

Sugar.

"Kankuro, stop that!" Mai barked, grabbing his hands away from his face.

Sakura jogged to them, tying her already short hair back out of her face in a stub of a ponytail. "Here; let me take a look at him." she said.

"Yes, please do," Temari urged. Fumiko moved to make room for Tsunade's apprentice.

Sakura glanced up at them. "Listen, it might help if you all clear out and make some room."

"I just broke through the ceiling," Mai huffed. "I'm staying right here."

"Fumiko!"

"Mom?" Fumiko looked outside to see her mother, ragged and with profound circles under her eyes, standing at the door. Her eyes and cheeks were puffy like she'd done nothing but cry for the last few days. "Mom!"

"You got it, Sakura," Uzumaki Naruto said and turned to leave, flanked quickly by Kakashi. Fumiko's mother stepped aside to give them room, then stood back in front of the door, waiting.

"Please leave, Mai." Sakura said.

"Like hell."

"Do you want me to try and save his life or not?"

Kankuro screamed again. Mai flinched, then narrowed her eyes. "Fine, but don't take any food from me for a while."

Mai stormed out of the room. Fumiko followed, prosthetic squeaking as she limped out of the room, and now her autopilot was malfunctioning and she was becoming useless as Sakura took charge behind her, shining lights into Kankuro's eyes and feeling his tongue and giving commands.

Her mother, as soon as Fumiko stepped outside the room, wrapped her arms around her daughter's shoulders.

Fumiko finally started to cry and almost hugged her back.

And then she realized- that her mother had never hugged her, never comforted her before. The only one that had ever been there when she needed it, or even that was able to figure out when she needed comforting, the only shoulder she'd ever cried on belonged to-

Gaara.

And now Gaara was gone.

She sagged, arms flopping to her sides, and she cried, and she cried, so her mother tried to hug her tighter and support her, but that was only destroying her inside and Mai seemed to realize what was going on as she calmed down because she started to say "Mom, no, put her down, you're making it worse, let her go-"

In surprise her mother let her go, brown haori already stained through with tears. Autopilot was gone, Gaara was gone, Gaara was going to die, she knew it, she just knew it, and then she was going to be alone forever and she hadn't even told him she'd loved him before she left him that night, but Kami, she loved him so much, and now there was something ripping her chest apart like paper bombs.

Fumiko's knees had barely touched the ground when Mai grabbed her arms and hauled her back to her feet.

"Fumiko."

"M-mai, he's-!"

"Punch that wall."

"Wh-what?"

"Punch that wall." She steered Fumiko in front of it; she was still sagging, but Mai was strong, strong enough that her fingers hurt her bruises, but she hadn't said anything about her bruises, Mai's steely eyes didn't seem to see her tears.

"No! Wh-why should I-"

"Punch. The. Wall."

"Mai, what are you-"

"Shut up, Naruto, just this once shut up and let me help my sister! Now punch the goddamn wall, Fumiko!"

With those last words she shoved her forward, but surprisingly enough Fumiko's legs didn't give out from underneath her and she looked at the wall getting closer and it seemed to flash black and red and she shrieked and pulled back an arm almost to catch herself but instead she sent it flying forward with a loud crunch that made her knuckles burn.

Fumiko panted, tears not quite startled away, arm buried up to her elbow in the solid sand-plaster wall.

There was a wordless silence. In the emergency room, the words exchanged were quietly urgent, but not panicked.

Fumiko started to cry again, big gulping sobs, but it was softer this time. She didn't bother moving any farther, just cried and left her arm in the wall and didn't care when it started to bleed.

...

~ "Yes it is. Aww, c'mon, don't pout! You know it's funny!" ~

...

It was torture, watching them extract the poison from Kankuro's body. It seemed so crude, so unreliable, and if the medic Sakura had lost her concentration merely for a second, the bubble of whatever-the-hell-it-was would be left inside of him.

Fumiko was still crying quietly, alone, which also sucked but it would be worse to comfort her. She sat underneath the arm and fist sized hole in the plaster she'd made, clutching her knees to her chest, not moving except for the small jerking motions that came with tears.

She had eventually ripped her arm out of the wall, fist and arm lacerated and bleeding and red from the rough texture of sand-plaster- bright blood against her dark bruises- and inexplicably tore off her cloak like it was suffocating her. She had thrown it to the other wall of the hallway, and there it still was, a sad little pile of brown fabric.

Her sister had been running more like a robot than a person. There was a name for that, operating on logic and monotonous muscle movement rather than dealing with the prospect of pain; some diagnosis or other she'd learned in her ninja psyche class, but she couldn't remember what it was now any better than she had in class.

It made sense. Fumiko despite all the odds had never really experienced mental pain. Brief flashes of mortal terror, short moments of feeling for an injured person, momentarily freaking out when Gaara almost lost his fights, yes, but never the deep, emotional pain that came with losing loved ones.

Not that Mai had ever lost a loved one, but according to Squirrel-taicho you could get the same kind of feeling from your first human kill, and she had killed people and had had a breakdown the first few times. She could remember them clearly now: a thin, storky merchant with wispy brown hair, and an average sized if not slightly short man with dull teeth and a fetish for kidnapping people.

Her kill count, from time spent taking on ANBU missions after training for more experience before going home, was sixteen. Now she was proud of that number. But those first few times...

Not to mention that Fumiko losing that particular loved one would be, in Mai's opinion, considerably worse than losing a loved one would be for anyone else. If it had been anyone else, Fumiko would have cried, then started to mourn, and then smiled at their funeral stone, say a few words that made everyone feel better and then move on.

But Gaara was her core. Fumiko had told her that once.

"Gaara is my heart."

"Oh yeah?" Mai said, not really paying much attention, because the soup Fumiko had made was delicious and she felt like eating it now despite how hot it was. "How does that work?"

"He made my heart, Mai."

"No, mom and dad made your heart."

"Ne, ne, that's not what I meant," she said, laughing a little. "I mean I became who I am because I knew him. Because Gaara... is my one true friend. He'll deny it, but he created me just as much as I created him. Without him I would have been just another person, and believed it."

Are you just another person now, Fumiko? Mai thought.

...

~ "No." ~

...

Almost the entire day passed them by, and still, nobody moved. Fumiko had stopped crying, mostly, but she hadn't moved an inch, face buried in her knees. Kakashi, Naruto, Granny Chiyo and her brother Ebisu still sat on the rough little bench. Mai herself sat criss-crossed on the floor, palms on her knees. Eishi and Shiragiku were a little farther off down the hall, getting information from one of the Chuunin that had happened to come down this way to report.

Fumiko's mother had left, unable to comfort or find any comfort from her daughters. Mai's hugs were rough and awkward, and hugging Fumiko resulted in an almost immediete breakdown no matter how many times you tried. Mai got it, really she did; her mother had possibly lost the only son she'd never had.

She just dealt with it differently than her mother or sister did.

There was nobody to fight. There was nothing to hit, nothing to tear into; no punching bag with a face taped on it, or an enemy she could run after. Well, there was an enemy; but Fumiko was never like this. When Matsuri had been kidnapped Fumiko had been worried, not sad. When Gaara was trapped in a chakra absorbing sphere Fumiko had been worried, not sad. The few times Gaara had almost sort of grown sand on his skin Fumiko had been worried, and gentle, and smiling; not sad.

Something was wrong now.

Mai was the kind of person that faced their problem and knocked it's teeth out. But death wasn't something you could attack, or offend, or manipulate into fighting blind. Mai could fight the Akatsuki all the hell she wanted but if Gaara was dead, then all of her strength and all of her guts and all of her brash hardness would be of no use.

To anyone.

As soon as there was no danger of immediately losing someone close to her and prematurely figuring out some of what Fumiko was feeling, Mai planned on going to ANBU headquarters underground and demanding to know what the hell had happened.

Sunagakure had some pretty tough shinobi, but it had even tougher ANBU, and this sort of thing shouldn't have been allowed to happen. ANBU had an entire tessenjutsu unit that might have been almost if not as powerful as Temari's- they should have been able to knock that Akatsuki member's bird right out of the damn sky, whether he had fancy dodging skills or not.

She started to tap her fingers against her leather pants. Mai also planned on coming back right after that and knocking Kankuro a good one upside the head for freaking everyone out and letting Fumiko go with him to fight two S ranked criminals. And, now that she thought about it, for trying to fight two S-ranked criminals. Asshole.

"I removed most of the poison," Sakura called out finally, wiping her face with the heels of her hand and smiling. "I believe that should put him out of any immediate danger."

Mai, along with every other person in the room except for maybe Fumiko but she wasn't sure, let out a relieved sigh. Kankuro might have been an A-ranked idiot, but he was a good Jonin, and friend to many besides.

Temari collapsed against the wall at the head of Kankuro's hospital bed and slid down to the floor as Naruto and Kakashi stepped inside. Mai followed. Even Fumiko, too, stood and wobbled her way inside, hiding her face from view like she was ashamed.

"Nice going, Sakura!" Naruto said. Mai grated at his loud voice.

"But we're not completely out of the woods yet. Now then... I have to quickly put together an antidote for the traces of toxin still remaining in his body."

"I see," Baki said. "Anything you need, don't hesitate to ask."

"Well." Sakura seemed to think for a moment. "First I'll need a list of all the medicinal herbs you have in this village."

"Yes ma'am."

Mai leaned out of the opening into the hallway. "Shiragiku!" she barked.

"What is it, Mai-chan?" he asked from down the hall, looking over.

"The medic needs a list of medicinal herbs. Don't you have them all memorized, or something?"

"Oh, yes, of course."

Mai ducked back inside, followed quickly by Shiragiku, who already had a hand inside his bag for the journal he was always scribbling in. He went right up to Sakura and they excanged a few words before he handed her the journal.

As far as Mai knew, Shiragiku was from the Chigusa clan. It was a small clan with very few numbers, but almost all of them branched off to be either poison-based medical ninja, or they tended the plants in the greenhouses. Their presence alone caused plants and herbs to at least sprout, even in Suna's crappy enviroment.

It was how Shiragiku always seemed to have live but cut plants and fruits in his bag- it was because his kekkei genkkai gave them life, like he was a tree or something, giving nutrients to it's leaves. Shiragiku's name itself meant white chrysanthemum, and she was pretty sure his surname was spelled for a thousand grasses and herbs. 

Mai knew this because Rattlesnake, ironically enough, was a poison-type assassin in ANBU Black Ops. Of course Mai would never tell him she knew who he was behind the mask- but the pale skin and the way grass got a little greener when he stepped on it was a dead giveaway to anyone with a pair of eyes, even if Mai hadn't put two and two together until she'd met Shiragiku.

Sakura nodded, accepting the book, then looked up at the other medic-nin. "We shoud change these bandages for new ones," she said.

Fumiko seemed to have lost her robotic mentality, as she didn't immediately move to act. It wasn't until Mai grabbed a roll of bandages from another medic's hands and shoved them into hers did she seem to snap out of her stupor.

She moved to wrap them around Kankuro's chest. Mai knew her sister's hands were true- she'd bandaged some of Mai's many broken ribs and cuts and slice marks. Between herself and Gaara, Fumiko had a lot of experience in wrapping, even without working at the hospital.

"I'll need and IV drip set up, stat," Sakura continued. The medics around her scrambled to get what she needed. Sakura raised a finger. "Oh, and be sure to set aside a small amount of the toxin I extracted. I'll be needing it later."

Mai just leaned back against the wall, huffed the hair out of her eyes, and slowly relaxed to watch the medics scurry about.

...

~ "Yes." ~

...

Fumiko was, depressingly enough, fully aware of herself as she wrapped Kankuro's chest wound, even if it did help her focus a little more on the material world.

She didn't know what to do now. It felt like she had a blade in her chest, poking about, waiting for the opportunity to cut something huge out of her.

Gaara wasn't dead. He wasn't. Not yet. And now Uzumaki Naruto was here, so maybe there was a chance of redemption; Uzumaki Naruto was impossibly strong- he had been the first to defeat Gaara in battle, even if it was almost a stalemate. And that was back then, before his training with a Sannin- surely he was even stronger now.

She didn't know Sakura very well, but if she was Tsunade's apprentice, then she had to be formidable herself. And Kakashi... Kakashi was in every bingo book Fumiko had ever read through. He had so many additional skills and specialties and titles that Fumiko almsot felt bad for the Akatsuki he would undoubtedly go after.

But that bad feeling... Fumiko just couldn't shake it, and it was making her crazy. Fumiko never had bad feelings; her instincts were just awful, and she never expected anything to go wrong more than it already had. But this time was different. This time the battle had been lost. This time there was prickling in her chest and stomach, a waviness, a deep ache like nausea and a stab wound and unsettlement.

It was new and it was foreign and she hated it.

She wanted to go out again. She knew she would be able to find Gaara somehow, eventually, no matter how long she stumbled about in the desert.

Kankuro's eyelids flickered. Temari leaned over the bed across from her. Fumiko just gritted her teeth and put a hand to Kankuro's throat to check his pulse. There were still some effects of poison lingering in his body, and the last thing he needed now in his fragile state were more heart palpitations.

"Baki-sama," a medic beside her said briskly, turning away towards the door. "Kankuro has regained consciousness."

Baki, Kakashi and Uzumaki Naruto re-entered the room just as Kankuro began to move his head about, eyelids fluttering and twitching. Fumiko moved her hand away to rest back on the bedsheets- his skin was hot, but his pulse was weak but stable.

"Kankuro," Temari said anxiously. "Are you alright?"

His eyes blinked open blearily, vision scuttling over Fumiko and focusing on his sister. "Temari... you're back already?"

No memory loss, the medic inside of her noted subconsciously, or fragmentation of time. He's already aware of his surroundings.

"I heard the village was in trouble," Temari said softly.

"I'm sorry," Kankuro answered in a tired voice. "To be such a bother."

Temari opened her mouth to respond but was immediately cut off by a hand in front of her face. Mai had leisurely detatched herself from the wall on which she had been resting, and now she scowled, taking in Kankuro's slightly dreamy expression.

"Shut up," she said, "You ass."

"Mai, I-"

"Shut up," she said again, "Before I punch your lights out for being stupid."

"Mai!" Temari said sharply. Mai tched and looked away, crossing her arms. Kankuro seemed to both wither and twitch into half of a disoriented smile at the same time, like he was amused and trying to hide it before her sister could see.

"Can you lead me to where Kankuro's battle with the Akatsuki took place?" Kakashi said beside her to Baki. Baki hesitated for just a moment. "I'm known for having a pretty good nose for tracking. If even the slightest trace of their scent remains on the scene-"

"I can," Fumiko said quietly. "I fought too."

"There's no need for that," Kankuro rasped. He started to sit up, arms and every other part of his body trembling with weakness and fatigue. Fumiko automatically moved to help him, pushing her hands on his back and shoulder. "Where are my puppets? I assume that my puppets were recovered, right?"

Mai immedietly tensed, as did Temari, although Mai was the only one of the two to speak. "Lie back down, Kankuro. You're too weak to be moving around. Just so you know, you're still poisoned-"

Kankuro half-heartedly waved her off. "I'm fine."

Mai was speechless for just half a second before her eyes flared with fire. "Why you- I said lie down!"

"Gyah!"

There were a few startled intakes of air and a lot of stares for a few seconds of ringing silence.

"What the heck?" Uzumaki Naruto finally burst out. "What in the world'd you hit him for?!"

"He's lying down now, isn't he?" she said seethingly, fist still raised. Kankuro, now indeed lying down (and gripping his quickly reddening cheek with his two shaky hands) groaned. "Oh, shut up! You go and get yourself stabbed and poisoned and freak us all the hell out and now you think you can shush me? Do you? Huh?"

"Sorry," Kankuro said weakly, smiling a little through his hands baitingly. "I guess the poison made me forget how insane you were."

Mai's expression died. Her eyes turned sharp.

Her knees bent slightly and then she was gone, there one second and gone the next, not even using sand to cover up her shunshin. The head-sized chunks of plaster left on the floor in the corner of the room snapped apart and crumbled into dust, so Fumiko assumed that was where she had run- through the very hole she had smashed through to get there.

Kankuro looked stunned.

...

~ "No." ~

...

Mai took a running, flying leap into the trapdoor that was genjutsu'd constantly to look like the center of the water reserve. In reality, it was a hollow stone tunnel set in the very middle of the water reserve, surrounded by blue water in a circle that lapped to almost the edges of the water house, like a giant donut. She slipped right through the illusion as the chakra embedded in the skin just underneath the crook of her right knee allowed her access.

She slammed feet-first against the side of the tunnel, then shifted her body in mid-hit and pushed chakra into her feet and launching off, ricocheting downwards in a spiral against the smooth rock until finally she landed on the bottom, skidding into a crouch on her hands and the balls of her feet some four hundred feet or so below ground level.

As soon as she did, hair still covering her face, Mai quickly unsealed her Jackal mask and set it over her face. The cool porcelain calmed her raggedy nerves just slightly as she forced her hair back into a quick ponytail and straightened.

Mai was gone, but Jackal couldn't help but wonder where the hell Kankuro had gotten the nerve to say a thing like that.

...

Mai didn't come back, even when her teammates Eishi and Shiragiku came back with the tied blanket of puppet parts that they had been sent to retrieve. Their sensei had already left for the Kazekage Tower to file his report, although Fumiko wasn't sure who would approve it. This thought only served to worsen the ache in her stomach, so she pushed it away.

"One fought with me, while the other tried to carry Gaara away. You might be able to follow Gaara's scent, but you can definitely track the one I fought. I made sure of it." Kankuro said, grunting a little and pointing a finger at his broken puppets. He was sitting up again. Fumiko wasn't sure how she felt about that. "See- I've got his scent right here."

The hand fell open as Kankuro used a little bit of chakra to force the clenched fingers apart. The pinky finger broke off. "The last thing I did was make sure I got a scrap of his clothing."

"Even in defeat, you went down fighting," Kakashi said quietly, crouching and picking up the little piece of cloth. It made sense now, Kankuro's obviously futile attempt to cut Sasori's throat. Ironically enough, that had saved his life. "Just what I'd expect from a Suna shinobi."

I didn't. The thought was sharp. I played dead.

Kankuro grinned wearily. Then he suddenly grunted, a short, cut-off moan of pain, and gripped his side, hunching forward slightly. Fumiko's hands followed his body, supporting his figure so he didn't fall off the bed on either side. Quietly, as soon as the bout of pain ended, Kankuro locked eyes with Uzumaki Naruto. Fumiko said nothing.

Temari followed his gaze. "Yes- they came all the way from Konoha to help us."

"Is that-..." Kankuro trailed off for a moment. "Uzumaki Naruto?"

"Hey there," Uzumaki Naruto greeted with a smirk.

"I see..."

As Kankuro pondered the Leaf ninja's arrival, behind them, Kakashi had already summoned his ninja hounds. Supposedly they would be able to help them find the Akatsuki, and as consequence, Gaara. There were eight of them, and in any other situation Fumiko would have laughed and squealed, because they were so cute, and she wanted to touch their paws.

But the impulse, she found, was completely and utterly dead, or at least tied and gagged and hidden somewhere she didn't feel like looking for at the moment.

"Heey, Pakkun!" Uzumaki Naruto exclaimed.

"That you, Naruto?" The dog's voice was kind of rough. "Aw, long time no see!"

Uzumaki Naruto put his hands up in a surprised way, grinning. "Look at you! You haven't changed a bit!"

"You haven't either."

"Huh? What are you talkin' about? I'm a lot taller, for one thing!" Uzumaki Naruto said almost nervously, putting a hand up to his forehead like he was measuring himself against the tiny puppy.

"Alright, alright, let's skip the reunion," Kakashi said, and Fumiko was grateful. Her face felt funny, she hadn't smiled or laughed in a few days, nor, now that she thought about it, had she taken a shower, but she didn't care now any more than she did before. Now the metal tail-shaped bruises wrapped around on her hips and her arms and her back and chest and stomach were at their darkest, deep purple and black, almost like she'd drawn them on with sharpie markers, except that they were shiny.

Fumiko got the feeling that blood vessels had popped and that she would have these bruises for a long, long while. Suddenly she wished for her cloak back, or a long sleeved dark jacket, or a black sleep-shirt that maybe, possibly, somehow still smelled like Gaara.

No.

She shook the feeling off and tuned back in, finding that she had zoned out of the conversation, and that the dogs had left.

"Okay," Uzumaki Naruto said loudly, stretching his arms across his chest. Fumiko realized that the hounds had left already. "We move out as soon as Pakkun and his posse get back, so I say we start getting ready!"

"Not so fast, Naruto," Kakashi said sternly. Uzumaki Naruto paused, long enough for Chiyo and Ebisu to step over to the bed. Fumiko stepped aside, barely feeling it, because why feel rubber on the sole of your feet when there was glass in your stomach and chest and throat so you couldn't breathe?

"Kankuro," Chiyo said.

Kankuro started, glancing over. "L-lady Chiyo? And Lord Ebisu? You're here?"

"There is something we must know, and only you can tell us."

Fumiko flinched. Chiyo disliked her, Chiyo ignored her, Chiyo didn't fully believe her when she said it was Sasori. Fumiko understood, she did- Sasori was her grandson. But the fact was plain and full view was that Chiyo thought Fumiko was simple, she always had, she had even casually mentioned it to Gaara once- Why get so involved with such a simple-minded person? It isn't like she could help you with anything, or be a decent housewife.

Gaara had gritted his teeth together and narrowed his eyes and said nothing, only nodded slightly, and Ebisu had suddenly gotten the hint and said sister, we should go fish, and they had left, and Fumiko had patted Gaara's shoulder and agreed when he said she wasn't simple-minded.

"Am I correct in thinking one of your opponents- the one you fought with- was Sasori?" Chiyo continued.

Kankuro looked away, down, eyes shivering.

She had no time to worry about Deidara, who was also getting up, so she reached down to pick Gaara up and managed to sling his arm around her shoulder before suddenly she was crushed by that tail, that so-fast tail that wrapped around her body and squeezed until she lost the breath in her body. It rose into the air. Fumiko screamed and flailed and beat at it with her one free hand but it didn't budge.

Gaara was on the ground far below her windmilling legs. He was still unconscious.

Fumiko swore for the first time ever. "Damn you!"

Sasori...

"Now speak up," Ebisu said. "Kankuro."

"Yes," Kankuro said, and it was a breath, it was a secret, he gave it away like he would his heart, like he was deflating. And it almost, almost made Fumiko break down again, because she knew he felt it too, the pain, not just the losing, which was horrible, but the failing, which was worse than being burned alive. "Sasori of the Red Sand. He told me so himself."

There was wordless silence for a moment. Fumiko looked at her hands, and found that she was adjusting Kankuro's IV, she had blacked out or something for a few minutes somehow, she must have, because she certainly didn't remember walking around the bed.

"Sasori of the Red Sand, huh?" Kakashi considered this. "I get the feeling you know something about these Akatsuki. Will you tell us?"

His stare was cool, and calm, and calculated, and something about it made Fumiko want to relax- oh, oh, him and Uzumaki Naruto will fix everything! But there was something about that, those mixed feelings, that holy-sugar-the-world-is-falling-apart swirling with everything-will-be-okay and it was like her personality was arguing with her worry and suddenly, it was too much, and she turned and she fell and she was violently sick on the floor.

And then everybody was worried and calling out and snapping fingers in her face, and then she was picked up by the arms like a limp rag doll and carried out to the benches just outside the door, where she was sat, and where suddenly there was Shiragiku and Eishi on either side of her.

Fumiko missed most of the conversation, because she threw up twice more into a bedpan, and after that the time was just spent spitting and trying to get the puke off her lips and her chin and out of her hair. Eishi patted her back and held her hair out of the way.

...

~ "Stop being stubborn." A grin played across her lips.

"I refuse." he said, but now he was smiling his small smile, and he was playing.

...

Jackal stepped through the hallway, her hands at her sides, shoulders up and back, haughty and swagger-y but not smugly, nor did she show personality, only the icy coldness of someone you didn't know. She had gone to Squirrel-taicho's but he hadn't been there, unfortunately, he must have been off doing paperwork somewhere to explain this away, poor bastard.

She stopped in front of the ANBU captain general's office- the only ANBU who didn't have an animal mask, simply a plain white porcelain mask that was creepy as fuck because it was a frowning human face with black holes for eyes and a mouth.

She knocked.

He said, "Come in."

Jackal did.

And then he said, "Oh."

"Captain-sama," Jackal said, bowing stiffly the way Squirrel-taicho had taught her to. Her voice was clipped and flat, impossible to connect with Mai's excited angry rough emotional howling voice. "Permission to inquire about a completed mission-report?"

Then Captain-sama did something Jackal hadn't seen him do for the entire time she had trained here, those months and months in the dark dimness of underneath-Suna that drove people insane to the point of being kicked out of ANBU and having their memory erased. He sighed.

"Granted."

Mai wanted to say what the hell happened why is the Kazekage kidnapped how did we get attacked from above when we had planned for this who was the bastard that fell asleep on duty? But she didn't. Because Jackal had it so deeply pounded into her that you just did not disrespect Captain-sama; it was a rule of thumb and a law of the universe.

"Sir. I heard that a unit was taken out during watch."

"Yes, Jackal. As a watch mission, you yourself were supposed to be assigned to that unit."

Jackal ignored the temporary blind rage slash bout of dizziness slash scream. "Sir... But as I was informed, the attacker came from the sky. With all due respect, we had a tessenjutsu unit. Why were they not posted above, on the rooftops?"

"Well, for one, Jackal-san, we had no information at all on these Akatsuki. I assume you've also heard about the Akatsuki?"

"Hai, sir. Some."

"In any case, we did have a few of our tessenjutsu squad posted. One at the front, one on the Kazekage's tower, and a third placed on Mitsuwa Fumiko's own studio workplace by explicit order of the Kazekage. They were taken by surprise. All three were recovered. Dead."

Damn. Jackal narrowed her eyes, though between the shadows and the way she had painted her mask, she knew Captain-sama couldn't see her eyes. That was why she'd painted it that way, because she wanted to keep that piece of herself- the eye-rolls, the scowls, the narrowing.

"Hai. But when the intruder was spotted on a flying bird, why wasn't our ANBU unit's Seal Flare activated, whether they were under attack or not? Our unit is dead, but there were six of them. One should have been able to spot their attacker-"

"Jackal-san," he said, and she bristled, because not only was the -san pointed, but because he had cut her off. But she bit her tongue.

"Hai."

"You are correct in saying that our unit didn't set off a single warning seal. The reason is still being uncovered. Explosives set in the rocks are making it impossible to recover all of the bodies. But be certain that our unit was not oblivious. We had men out there with specialties in sensory techniques. They would have known had their been an outside attacker."

"Are you saying we were betrayed?" Mai said sharply, and then cursed herself, Jackal, Jackal.

For some reason the captain didn't seem offended. His eerie white mask seemed to glare at her- softly.

"There's no sure way of telling. However, captain Yura has vanished. We can't seem to find anything on his whereabouts, or even if he's currently alive."

And usually, that statement would have bothered her, Yura was the head of defense, not necessarily part of ANBU but a close worker, the head of defense, and so a lot of missions came by his hand, and anyway he knew many ANBU by both mask and face. Not hers yet. Usually she would have nodded and bowed stiffly and left and run back up to the water and scream and scream and scream because Gaara had been betrayed by his father's most trusted advisor.

But...

"Gomenasai," she said suddenly, voice low. "Sensory-nin expert?"

"Goshuushou sama desu," he said solemnly. "Squirrel-san was the best sensor-nin ANBU has or ever will see."

Underneath her mask, Mai's eyes and nostrils flared.

"No." she said. "Forgive me my disrespect, Captain-sama, but Squirrel-taicho was too good to be defeated by a- a-" she struggled with the words bastard son of a bitch- "A traitor, surrounded by his own unit."

"Jackal," he said, and he sounded tired. "I'm sorry. If you wish, you can visit the ANBU morgue. You have permission to lock the door and remove your mask."

Jackal's- Mai's- someone's head was spinning, swirling, and there were colors popping in her eyes and something squeezing and constricting in her chest and crawling over her skin, like spiders in her muscles, poisoning her, paralyzing her, turning Mai into Jackal, the perfect ANBU, the quiet ANBU, she had been trained for this, to lose her taicho, to lose her teammates, to lose people that saved her life.

Training that was working and wasn't working, because the spiders made her immobile at the same time that they made her writhe inside.

No. No. Not her taicho, not her taicho, not the one who had taught her to cook rattlesnakes so you didn't get poisoned, not the one that taught her to blend into the sand, to stay underwater for minutes at a time, not the one who taught her to walk in the sand without footsteps, the one who held her against regulation when she cried and tried to resuscitate the criminals she'd murdered in attempted cold blood.

Squirrel-taicho had brought her back from the dead during training. Squirrel-taicho had stopped her eating soldier pills despite the fact that she needed them and halted the squad instead so that she wouldn't hurt her body under the excuse that his bad shoulder (where he'd been stabbed once) was acting up again. He had picked her mask, and taught her to be an assassin.

Squirrel-taicho was...

She didn't know who he was.

But she did.

But she didn't. Only his mask. His painted mask that was being handed to her, and Captain-sama was saying something about picking Mai to be his replacement when she finished with her training, and that she would bury his mask with him and say words all as Jackal, and Jackal was nodding but Mai was screaming, and screaming, and she was pissed off like hell and slashing her swords at her insides and bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.

Mai's eyes burned.

...

~ "It iiisss, and you knooooww itt!" Fumiko sang.

Gaara smiled again. Fumiko could see him now, she had turned around, one hand still up to the sky. "Thank you, Fumiko."

"Huuh?" she killed the song in her voice, blinking. "What for?" ~

...

Kankuro was chugging Sakura's medicine as fast as he could, and it must have tasted terrible because he almost choked on it and Sakura had to hold the cup so he wouldn't drop it.

"That's right, drink it all," Sakura said.

Finally he finished, and when Sakura moved the cup there was a line dribbling down his chin, dark green-brown like smoothied mulch and grass, and he coughed, hacking like it would come back up, pounding on his chest with his fist. The IV drip was gone now- it wouldn't mix well with the antidote.

"There," Sakura puffed like a breath of air. "You should be all right now. Just lie back and rest, and don't move around until the numbness passes."

"All of you are going to need rest as well," Baki said from somewhere at the foot of the bed. She assumed he was talking to Uzumaki Naruto. "After your journey. We've prepared rooms for you."

His reaction was immediate and expected. "But! But we've gotta go after Gaara!"

Leave right now. Don't. You need to catch up. You need to be able to fight them. He could be dead. You might die.

"Thanks, we'll take you up on your offer." Kakashi said smoothly from the doorway. Fumiko was still sitting on the bench; so she had seen him come in. She had stopped throwing up and now, hours and hours later when the sun was going down, Eishi and Shiragiku had gone to find Mai, who had never returned. "We may have to travel far and fast tomorrow."

"Hmph..." Uzumaki Naruto's voice strained to argue, but there was sense in what Kakashi said. Uzumaki Naruto must have grown since the last time she had seen him, more than just in body, if he was giving up. "Fine. You win."

"Good," Kakashi said.

"Here, Naruto, here's your bag. You baka, you left it in the hall."

"Hehe, thanks, Sakura." Uzumaki Naruto said sheepishly, and took it, then grinned. "Tomorrow we leave!"

Her mind was still swirling, as was her stomach, but she hadn't eaten in three days. Everything there was inside of her was gone now, rinsed off in one of the sinks, vanished in cleaning ammonia from the floor. Fumiko didn't want to throw up any more.

Kankuro whispered something.

"Don't worry," Uzumaki Naruto said, oblivious to the shocked looks around him, almost as quiet as Kankuro but Uzumaki Naruto's voice was always loud enough to be heard, even through a painful buzz. "I will. After all, I'm gonna be Hokage someday... And for now, the Kazekage can just owe me one."

...

~ "For reminding about the sun."

"... Huh?" ~

...

There was nothing.

Pain, somewhat.

Inside of him.

...

~ "I forget sometimes. About a lot of really stupid little things. And you always remind me." ~

...

Uzumaki Naruto almost, almost left.

And Fumiko almost, almost let him.

But as he passed she reached out and grabbed his wrist and he startled so badly she thought he would scream, but then he composed himself, and blinked at her in confusion.

"Uh... Fumiko! Hey, you feeling okay now?"

And then, dazed, she let him go, and let him leave.

...

~ Fumiko beamed. "You're welcome!"

And Gaara looked at her, really looked at her, and his eyes went as soft as the sunlight she was trying to catch, and he didn't smile or frown, just looked at her, his mouth relaxed. And then he closed his eyes and then he did smile, wider than usual, and he looked up to the sky with his eyes still closed to feel the sun on his face. ~

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we have a little more development on Mai's part... Urgh, I hate it, everything wrong happens to her... ehh... but it's important. Those japanese words- I'm certain you know what gomenasai means- means i am sorry for your loss.
> 
> FYI Mai is IN TRAINING. Just thought I'd point that out...


	4. Sickness of the Heart

...

~ Fumiko sniffled once, wiping her nose. ~

...

Overnight, hysteria had set in.

She hadn't meant for it to. All she'd wanted to do was sleep. Lie down in bed and fall asleep instantly like she always could, because she hadn't slept in- in- she also hadn't looked at a calendar for a while.

She wanted to fall asleep, and have this all be a bad dream- just have this be her first nightmare, and then in the morning she would wake up and shake it off, go to the kitchen and make breakfast for Temari and Kankuro and whoever was hanging around the kitchen, then bring the rest up to Gaara so they could eat and she could tell him all about her super weird dream and he would tell her never, never.

Almost six hours ago she had lied down, under the covers.

And it had almost worked.

And then she rolled over, and in doing so- instead of accidentally kicking someone who was already awake and being pushed off gently, she just flopped to the other side of the bed, which had happened before, of course, because she rolled over after Gaara left for work sometimes but-

His pillows still smelled like him.

Something had snapped inside of that tight feeling and spread everywhere else and Fumiko had frozen, nose barely brushing the corner of Gaara's pillow, which had a single deep indent in it from where he had lied there, staring at the ceiling with his arms resting on his stomach, maybe with his head turned to watch her sleep- Fumiko sometimes woke up to that; Gaara always closed his eyes so fast, it was like looking at a flickering lantern, two pools winking out.

Fumiko hadn't moved since she had rolled over.

It was killing her. Every muscle in her body was wound up tight like spindle string, ready to snap and leave her disabled with torn tendons and loose joints and without even shivers on her skin. It was freezing; even though she had pulled on a black shirt that didn't smell like Gaara after all, she hadn't worn thick pants and when she rolled the blanket had been pulled off her legs.

Her body was trembling, a strange, deep kind of trembling, enough that even her hair draped over one of her eyes was whispering about. Her body throbbed with breath; small sounds like the heaving pants of someone with bad lungs escaping from her mouth, squeaky, rough, and so full of air there was almost no sound. It was making her lightheaded. Everything was drenched in sweat.

But she couldn't move.

This was wrong; it felt wrong, it felt like she was already mourning, which didn't make sense, because Gaara wasn't dead. She knew with absolute certainty that he wasn't.

In between her rapid breathing and quickly drying eyes and frozen tendons and freezing skin, Fumiko realized that this was the first time she'd been separated from Gaara for more than a school or work day in more than seven years, save for the occasional mission. She always saw him in the mornings or the afternoons or in passings-by at the office, or at night if she woke up at the right time in between his coming and going.

Gaara lied. Everything inside her kept coming back to that. He didn't mean to. She didn't blame him for it. But sugar, what was a swear if it could be obliterated with nothing more than one fight? How could she believe in her own hope if it was as fragile as a single word?

Everything was fragile. The bruises on her body, her painful ribs and arms, and the memory of his cold warmth, and the cold, cold air that barely broke across her skin; even his scent was fragile. What if she moved? What if everything was destroyed?

...

~ Everything in her body felt like it hated her- her nose, her sinuses, her eyes, her ears, even the rest of her body- including her skin- just wanting to lie around like dead meat and be sick. ~

...

When the sun came up early the next morning, Fumiko finally got out of bed. She was sore from the awkward position and the tight muscles and she was starving but she knew she wouldn't be able to eat.

Had Pakkun and the others already arrived? What if the shinobi had already left? Was she too late? Was everything too late? Fumiko doubted her intuition; Gaara was alive but what if she was wrong?

But no, no, they wouldn't have taken him if they didn't need him, and they wouldn't have spared the village if they didn't need him, but if it was because they needed his biju and they didn't find him soon then it was all over. In all of history, nobody had survived having a tailed beast sealed inside them removed. Fumiko knew- after the incident with Seimei she had researched it.

She swayed out into the hall. Something was wrong with her body- aside from all the other things that were wrong with her body. She was exhausted from stress, her body was worn and beaten, and she hadn't eaten in days. But she knew that she could find Gaara, the same that she knew he could find her. They always found each other.

If she could walk long enough.

"Gone, can't believe he's gone, I need to find him and s-see if he's okay-"

Fumiko, when her voice finally broke, realized she'd been mumbling to herself the entire way to the front door of the tower, equipped with Gaara's old ninja tool kit, with razor wire she didn't know how to use and paper bombs she refused to ignite and kunai she had almost used correctly just days before already in her medical pack, which seemed just so wrong, but even after she had dumped everything out of her satchel there wasn't enough space in it.

...

~ Which, of course, was exactly what she was doing. ~

...

Kankuro knew something was wrong.

First was the unusual way Mai had snapped earlier. It wasn't like her to back down from any kind of challenge- but she'd looked almost- hurt?

Now she was just sitting there, with her back against the side of the bed and her arms curled around her knees, staring blankly at the scratches and chips in the floor and the ray of sunlight peeking in onto the corner of the room, where there was a jagged hole in the plaster, which, Baki had explained, had been caused by her almost frantic mad insane dash to get inside.

Kankuro wasn't sure how to feel about that.

It looked, maybe, like she was crying, except that there were no sounds; it was hard for him to sit up to check, and if she saw him trying she would knock him into next Tuesday. She was clutching something to her chest, but he couldn't see that either.

His body was throbbing numbly, and it felt like it should hurt, except that it didn't, which was really disconcerting.

Now, Kankuro knew Mai. Somewhat. A little. For whatever reason she had decided that he had nothing better to do than train with her when they both had time off- or argue. He hated admitting that it helped his jutsu considerably, so he didn't. But there were certain things that made her tick and certain things that didn't. For instance, depending on how you did it, insulting her would result in anything ranging from a lazy over-the-shoulder finger to a heated crazy intense argument that sometimes lead to fights to the death.

However, if you insulted Fumiko or Gaara, it was instant Battle Start.

Or, you know, just comment on her height. That always ticked her off, big time.

But whatever the case, this was a new one. This strange sulking intense feeling coming off her in waves, like rage and confusion and bloodlust and some soft sadness, like a whimpering puppy that also happened to be a full-sized rottweiler. Or a chihuahua. Chihuahuas were terrifying up close.

Nah... Mai was a rottweiler.

Man, he wished he could see what she was holding.

"Gaara? ... okay, put... assault squad." He could hear Temari's voice floating from the hallway, but his ears were full of this strange buzzing. Maybe that was why he couldn't tell if Mai was crying or not.

Screw it. He had to sit up and get out of here. Gaara needed him.

"Temari..."

"Kankuro, what do you think you're doing?" Temari exclaimed at his giveaway loud pained grunts and groans, dashing into the room like he would run away if she didn't. "You're not going anywhere, you need to rest!"

"I'll tear out your spleen," came the shaky voice beside his bedside.

And Kankuro knew, unfortunately, that it wasn't an empty threat. Mai would find a doctor to staunch the bleeding and dash it out with her blades so he wouldn't be able to move again for a long long time.

Kankuro lied back down.

Temari raised a fist. "I give you my word, I'll get Gaara back," she said, with a mix between a scowl and a worried frown and determination.

He smirked.

And his sister smirked right back.

...

~ Even if she'd wanted to go outside, it wasn't like Gaara would let her. He always got worried whenever she got sick, even if it was just a cold. He was here now, in her room, giving her tissues and keeping her company. ~

...

Sakura hadn't known what to expect when she came to Suna. Gaara had never been a particularly close friend of hers- after all, the first time they had met, he'd pinned her to a tree with sand and tried to crush her to death.

But he wasn't a horrible person. From what she had seen later, in battles and meetings and what she remembered from the chunin exams.

Horrible people weren't cared about. At least, not in the full-on way of someone who wants only the best for you, ever, no exceptions, no expiration date. So Sakura knew- the second Fumiko, the pascifist girl, who had bandages on her arms and neck and chest, a sprained ankle, and a clunky prosthetic that creaked with sand and wear came bolting out the door to the Kazekage Tower- that Gaara was worth saving.

Fumiko stopped, panting, hands on her knees. She wore a black long-sleeved shirt and the same cargo shorts she had worn during the chuunin exams (thinking back, Sakura realized she had always worn those.) Her hair curtained over her face, and for a second it was just brown on black on tan until she finally straightened.

She looked terrible. Her skin was sallow and pale despite her tan, cheeks already starting to sink from starvation. Her eyes were bloodshot and red and puffy; hair unbrushed. There were sores both old and freshly bleeding across her lips and the corners of her mouth, and she couldn't seem to stop moving- her hands fluttered to her neckline, to her pouch, crossed and uncrossed, playing with her hair.

"I'm coming with you," she said, but her voice was barely a hoarse whisper.

"No you're not," Sakura said immedietly.

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not."

"Yes I am!" Her eyes were bright, mouth trembling. "I-I need to!"

"You can't."

"Sakura-chan-" Naruto started to say. but Sakura held up a hand and he shut up.

"I have to!"

"No." Sakura said as forcefully as she could.

She wasn't trying to be cruel. Fumiko was no ninja. Her genjutsu was formidable, but she was no ninja. Akatsuki would flick her off and crush her underfoot like a bug. If things went South, and Gaara... Sakura beilieved that Fumiko wouldn't be able to deal with it. And that was not something she wanted on the battlefield.

Unexpectedly, Fumiko started to cry.

"I've got to!" she practically shrieked. "Gaara's not- I'm not- h-he can't be beat, but he was! He swore! He promised! Wh-who could... I have to, there's this horrible horrible feeling in my-"

Here is where her voice started to crack. She clutched at the fabric of the shirt twisting it on her fingers. It was loose on her, Sakura realized, thinking back to all the times she had ever seen these two.

His shirt. It was his shirt.

"Fumiko-"

"H-h-he's in trouble and I- I need to- Kami! Sugar!"

"Fumi-"

"H-he needs me, Saku-!"

With a preciseness and finality one could only learn from Tsunade-sensei, Sakura took a clean step forward, and grabbed the now hysterical girl's face, forcing her to both look at her and shut up. She forced herself not to cringe away from the feel of liquid spilling over her fingers and dripping off her wrist. She felt the jaw tense in surprise.

"No you can't. As much as you want to, you can't help us, Fumiko! You're not a shinobi. You can't fight! Not in the condition you're in. You would slow us down, and get in trouble, and we would always be watching your back! How do you expect us to help Gaara like that?"

Fumiko sniffed, raising her hands and for a moment Sakura thought that maybe she might've gone a little too far, calling her useless like that, but Fumiko only used them to wipe her eyes and nose. Her fingers were shaking, trembling like leaves.

"You're right," she whispered. "Right. Right. I'm... I-I'm no help to..." she seemed to hesitate on that line. "... anyone. Anyone!"

"That's not true," Sakura said. Of course she felt all the eyes on her- Kakashi-sensei's, Naruto's, Baki, Chiyo's, Temari's, the group of people that had showed up with her. "You can stay here. Watch things for Gaara, be safe. Right?"

Fumiko stared at her.

...

~ Fumiko took the tissue with a slightly watery smile. "Thanks!" she said in a nasally voice before blowing her nose. ~

...

There were so many things to remember before you died.

Pain.

Love.

Stupid, stupid things.

Gaara remembered angry people, and Shukaku, and Yashamaru, and his father, and death and blood and lies and pain. And Gaara also remembered a boy called Naruto, and Mai, and his students, and Mrs. Mitsuwa, and Fumiko's father, Fukuda; but mostly his memories were dominated by a girl with brown eyes and brown hair whose name was getting harder and harder to remember, her voice light and high and sweet and that she always smiled and laughed and the way she saw things and her short flat brown plainness, and how she always smelled like terpentine fumes and cookies, and her humor, and her kindness, and her words, always comforting.

Kami Kami Kami it hurts it hurts kill me kill me!

Her warmth.

Don't forget.

Everything.

...

~ "Are you sure you're okay?" Gaara felt her forehead with the back of his hand. "You're burning hot." ~

...

"Stay here," she parroted in a brittle tone. Sakura let her go, stepping back. Fumiko touched her cheeks with her fingertips, tears still practically seeping down her face.

"Yeah, Fumiko-chan," Naruto said, perking slightly. "Gaara always talks about how you help him with things."

"He... does?"

"Sure. He's pretty hopeless when it comes desks- I've seen it with my own eyes! Asked him once how he did it, staying Kazekage without being able to keep a pile a pile for more than a-"

"Naruto," Sakura said. "We should-"

"And he said, 'I couldn't if Fumiko didn't fix everything over and over.'"

Fumiko's fingers had stilled against the black fabric of the shirt, and here she bowed her head, staring at the ground.

Sakura was trained to detect body launguage. Everything about this girl, right now, radiated giving up.

"Hey, cheer up, Fumiko-chan," Naruto said, stepping forward slightly and raising his hands up behind his head, grinning. "I'll get him back for sure, 'ttebayo! Then we can all laugh at him for getting himself into this mess!"

Fumiko didn't say anything. Sakura figured that now was probably the best time to go, before she remembered whatever it was that made her want to go so badly. She nodded at Kakashi-sensei, who nodded back.

"We should be going," he said quietly.

"Oh, yeah! Look, Fumiko-chan, we gotta go, but when we get back we can-"

"Come on, Naruto."

"Ow! Sakura! Dont pull my arm like that!"

As they left, Fumiko didn't move at all.

...

~ "Yeah, I'm okay. You can go to school, really." ~

...

"So, I guess we'll head out on our own then," Kakashi said coolly.

"Thank you," Baki said. "I'll try to convince the council to change their mind."

"Don't worry," Temari said with a weak smile. "We'll catch up with you."

Sakura nodded, smiling herself. She was expecting this mission to be a success- two against two. And when Naruto had something to fight for, it was more like two against a hundred and one. Those Akatsuki had no idea what was about to hit them.

"By the time you catch up with us, we'll already have rescued Gaara!" Naruto jeered good-naturedly.

"We'll see you soon," Sakura said.

"Uzumaki Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto! Wait!"

The ninja paused. Fumiko struggled through the little group of people crowding the way until they realized she was there and started to make way for her. When she got through, she reached out a hand and latched onto Naruto's wrist, and for a second it was like Sakura was invisible, like everyone was invisible, because Naruto's grin dropped and he just stared at her.

After a few moments of this, Fumiko's grip tightened. "Please, bring him back. Promise you will."

Naruto smiled. "I swear."

"No, don't swear!"

"What?"

"Don't." Fumiko's face crumbled into anxiety. "D-don't swear. Just..."

"Okay, then," Naruto said. "I promise!"

Fumiko smiled, then, and Sakura knew that never in a million years would she forget that smile: tipped, broken, prickly, sad, but hopeful.

Fumiko released him, and without a word, Team Kakashi and Lady Chiyo all turned away and started to run through the desert, leaving the village far, far behind them.

...

~ "No. I'm staying here." ~

...

Whatever had been bothering Mai before was gone. Her actions, her eyes, her words, everything became clipped and calm and precise. Well, not gone, Kankuro supposed- pushed to the side. Ignored.

She let him sit up. Whatever that girl Sakura had put together, it was working, worming through his system with a numbing kind of coolness that killed the dangerous fever in his blood. It felt almost gone now, but his body was wrecked, wreaked by pain and malnutrition. For three days he had eaten and drunk nothing, unless the painkillers and antidote counted.

"I hate this," Kankuro growled, staring at his hands. His fingers curled. He couldn't even make a proper fist yet. "I'm the one who should go after Gaara. If it weren't for these injuries-"

"You would get killed." Mai said. "They would kill you."

"Don't tell me you don't want to go after them too!"

Her face darkened instantly. She was sitting at the end of the bed, by his feet, legs crossed indian style. Her fingers gripped her knees, twitching like she was thinking of going for her swords. "I want to rip their heads off and pike them. And I will if I die trying. But right now it's not as important. Naruto's headed out soon, right? If he gets back and he couldn't do it, that's it."

"You mean you're not going with them?"

The surprise was evident in his voice. Mai wasn't recklessly running off to do whatever the hell she wanted? Mai was thinking rationally? She should have been exploding. Blowing things up. Punching holes in things. Demanding to be allowed to go.

He didn't like this Mai at all.

"No, I'm not."

"Why?"

"Do I have to have a reason?" she snapped.

"Yes, you damn well do. Every word that just came out of your mouth was wrong." He paused. "Except for that last part. That was normal."

"These Akatsuki?" Mai hissed, twisting. "These Akatsuki are it, Kankuro! Endgame. I'm crazy but I'm not stupid. If I go out there now I'll take at least one of them with me but I'll die trying."

"Mai, what-"

"They took out- ... top units of ANBU. They took out Gaara, damn it!"

"So? Since when does that kind of thing bother you?" Now he was getting mad and he wasn't sure why. This was a good thing- she was right. She was twelve. No matter how much she trained they would smash her to pieces. If she killed one it would be a stalemate, both sides losing, and only because she was just too damn stubborn to die alone.

"If they kill him," Mai said, and now there was ice in her tone that made him flinch. "Then I will kamikaze their asses until they kill me. Because you know what, Kankuro? This isn't even about you, or Temari, or even this entire goddamn village. This is about him, and it's about Fumiko. You know what happens to me if Gaara dies?"

He said nothing. He could feel the danger reflected in the bright wetness of her eyes.

"I would be alone," she whisper-screeched. "And I would gladly take a suicide mission if there was even a chance of killing one of them."

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, his head screamed. Why was she talking like that? Like an old person? Like a shinobi? It sent shivers up his spine. It's not like she was short anymore. Compared to him, yeah, she was a midget, but to others her age, she was average, a little on the taller side, actually. The opposite of her sister, who had stopped growing with her eyes at Gaara's shoulders. Mai would likely get much taller.

But Kami did she look like a little kid. Her face was still a little round like a child's. There had always been ferocity in her eyes, but that was more like a fierceness, a power. Now it was like fire- no, like ice. Like frozen heat, chilled and angry. Hard.

"What happened to you?"

'Nothing happened to me."

It was the pointy bladed me that shut him up.

...

~ Fumiko sneezed again. "You have a test today, though." ~

...

"We could be friends," Fumiko said, smiling and cheerful and bright. "If that's okay with you."

Gaara remembered laughter and red rubber balls and almost exploding in flashes of yellow and fire orange and betrayal and pain and blood and running through the cold in the dead of night and screaming and silence and glares. Sleepless nights spent bandaging rebandaging applying cutting waking up soothing.

He remembered doctors and smiles and more laughter and tears and stayovers and chocolate and a swing set that colored and warmed and beetles and butterflies and music boxes and stargazing and sand castles and warm breezes. Hateful glares and grins and curses and exclamations about the sky nightmares painting and coldness on his skin.

Christmases and Thanksgivings welled up in his mind, coating his skin, temporarily blocking the painpainpain. Easter.

Slowly falling in love.

The chunin exams- how could he forget? Travel, ramen, sugar, melted through his body, Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke, and hatred toward his father, and his father, and Lee, and flourcococoabrowniespictures, Kankuro, Temari, training, fighting, changing, fighting for his life calmness anger rage broken memories bad laughter, waking up in a hospital with two beds and Kankuro beside him, telling the truth and being forgiven.

Hospitals. Medical textbooks. Green light. Confusion- papers, missions, glue of Suna, panic at the higher-ups. Sasuke. Lee. Bones. white-white-white. Being saved. More laughter, more smiles. Matsuri, Mai. Cookies and kidnappings, fighting and almost dying, saving her, voice in his head and skin sand. Controlling it, controlling everything.

Impossible dreaming that seemed not so impossible with her. Wild campaigning, training, testing, talking, talking, talking- giving a speech. New robes and office and paperwork he didn't know how to handle and laughter and paint and food, talking. Breakfast. Dinner. Person-gazing instead of stargazing.

Music. Dancing. Lights. A festival. Colors and cotton candy, and a kiss that, if he tried hard enough, he could almost trick himself into thinking he could still feel on his cold dead lips. Pain it hurts stop please stop you're killing me ripping tearing something's gone what is it my heart?

Meetings and whirls of action and a lot of being bored, happy days off, casual kisses, constant hugs. He would miss everything. Joking. Laughing. Smiling. Teasing. Holding close at night. Leaving early in the morning; the sunrise, the sunset, the clouds, Suna colors, the sand, the heat, the weight of his gourd, the sand grain dancers about his head, his siblings, his friends, his friend.

Clay. Explosions. Fear terror anger rage.

I'm dying.

...

~ "How did you-" Gaara shook his head, moving his hand off of her forehead and reaching back for the pail of cold water he had brought in. "Of course you knew that." ~

...

Fumiko used to steal Gaara's hat when she worked for him in the office. Now she couldn't. It lay on the corner of the desk, just teetering there where he had thrown it. His robes were on the floor beneath it; she hadn't picked those up either. If she touched them she might ruin something- their smell, she might stretch them out, dust off something important.

So she sat down at the desk and pulled the papers to herself and hunched over with a brush and got to work. If they didn't accept her signature then they didn't. She hoped they wouldn't. Gaara, so easily replaced? Never.

But she shuffled through the papers, pulling piles apart and restacking them, reorganizing Gaara's mess- or perhaps other ninjas' messes; how long had it been, four days now, five? How many mission reports or complaints or paperwork could there possibly be in five days? Their Kazekage was gone; of course there was.

...

~ Fumiko could hear the sounds of Gaara carefully dipping a rag into the pail to wet it. Then he looked at her again, and the rag came up over her eyes to cover her forehead, which felt amazingly good against her feverish skin. ~

...

Days passed.

On the first day, she worked and worked and worked and worked into the night, not daring to go to sleep and wake up later and prove that this wasn't just some horrible nightmare. There was still that sick twisted sense of urgency in the pit of her body. The pain in her limbs intensified; if she so much as touched her arms to the desk they screamed.

She ignored it.

She caught herself reaching for her pendant, her good luck charm, her everything-will-be-alright promise on a fishing line.

Why did it save me...

What had saved her? No; never mind, she didn't care. More autopsy reports from recovered bodies. The entrance was completely cleared. More reported missing aside from Captain Yura. There was a meeting tomorrow at noon; she had to attend for some reason Baki said.

Kami, she didn't want to. She wanted to stay here and finish the work so that when Uzumaki Naruto came back with Gaara he would look at what she had done and say good job, and she would say i missed you i love you and he would say you too, and everything would be okay again and that horrible feeling would go away forever.

...

~ "Thanks for staying with me, Gaara." She sneezed again. "It's more fun being sick when I'm not alone." ~

...

Oh Kami, he was dying.

Dying.

He wasn't supposed to die.

Stopstopithurtswhat'scomingoutofmebloodmysoulIcan'tseemythroathurtsIcan'tbreathe.

There was a horrible sense of wrongness at the memories that splashed through his person like warm molasses, he had done something unacceptable. Lies. Lies and pain.

...

Gaara petted her hair absently. "Always." ~

...

Yura was a spy.

"Incredible," a head exclaimed. Fumiko didn't know which one it was, her eyes were on the table. "Four years he sat on the council; how could it be?"

"Yes, I know," Baki muttered. "But it finally makes sense now. That's how they were able to break through our defenses so easily. And who'd have ever suspected that the head of our security was partnered with the enemy?"

Beside her, Kankuro scoffed. He was off bed rest now. Mai was out doing something, Fumiko wasn't sure what; probably to hit at her punching bags or get something to eat. Kankuro's voice was a rumbling growl, a hiss. "I don't understand how this even happened. We checked out everyone when Gaara became Kazekage."

"We don't know the truth yet," Ebisu said. Fumiko recognized his voice moreso than the others; after all, she had shared a hospital room with it for two days. "It's possible that this fellow was under the control of some form of jutsu."

"More importantly," said a newer, younger Head angrily, "Why aren't there any details about the Kazekage?" A thud as a scroll hit the table hard. Fumiko flinched but didn't raise her eyes at all. Her fingers wormed together on the table in front of her. "She says nothing on when Gaara will return!"

He has to...

The Head slammed his fists down on the table.

"The leader of one of the five great nations has been kidnapped. By a lone pair of outlaws no less!"

He saved your life.

"And if that's not bad enough," he continued angrily, "It seems one of these vermin is Sasori of the Red Sand! We cannot allow a disgrace of this magnitude to get out."

His voice was very final, very authoratative. A lot of people had spoken to her like that- her father, her teachers, Gaara's teachers, other people her age, even. It was a tone that said I am the only right one and You are a fool to think differently.

"If it were known the Kazekage was missing," said another, calmer voice, "There's no telling how emboldened the other neighboring lands would become. Our most pressing need is to elect a new Kazekage, and bring much needed stability to the village."

Fumiko's eyes flew up, startled, shocked. He said that so flippantly- new Kazekage. Kazekage. Kazekage.

He was Gaara.

And he could not be replaced.

"No," she said.

"Fumiko's right," Kankuro spat. "And she's second, so-"

"Second?"

"You didn't know?" Baki seemed surprised. "You're Gaara's official stand-in. If anything were to happen to... then, you were supposed to take proxy leadership until his return, or until... a new Kazekage comes into office."

"But she's just a girl. The Kazekage was biased, she cannot lead."

"You," Fumiko said, "Are biased, and you can't lead!"

Did that come out of her mouth? She was angry.

"In any case it is an option that must be considered."

Kankuro scoffed again, a sharp tch that spelled danger. Fumiko's hands clenched and unclenched on the table, over and over; she was trying not to bite her lips. They were torn enough already and it wouldn't be right to bleed here, in this place, with these people... they wouldn't understand it.

"Nonsense," Baki exclaimed. "We don't know that Gaara isn't coming back!"

Fumiko nodded, a slow robotic bob of her neck.

"There are some of the opinion that the village might be better off if he never came back at all," said another head smoothly, looking away. Fumiko's writhing hands flew to her mouth. Ohmysugar don't throw up don't!

There was a second of charged tension. Fumiko's head spun, her chest hurt; she wanted to cry so badly. Gaara, all Gaara had ever wanted was their respect, and he saved all their lives even these ones even these awful ones that still doubted him cruelly. They should have been begging to find him. They should have been begging to rescue him.

"You still..." she couldn't get the words out. "After all this time... all he's done for you..."

You still hate him?

"What are you getting at?" Baki asked, narrowing his one visible eye.

"Gaara is an unstable monster carrying the One-tail inside of him. We though he would be easier to govern if we made him the Kazekage."

"He won, fair," Fumiko hissed.

What is going on with me?

"He did. But the Heads have always been able to... bend rules. Had we seen the need we would simply have altered the outcome." He paused. "There's no telling when he'll go out of control... he's a danger to us all! I know Gaara resonated with the Shukaku in the beginning. But face it- he's a botched experiment at best. Even his own father knew that. The Fourth Kazekage ordered his assassination for a reason!"

Fumiko could almost feel her pupils dilating. As it was, wetness prickled at the edges. Cheating. They'd been cheating all along, scheming, manipulating. They didn't care about Gaara. They didn't care about anyone! Her mouth trembled uncontrollably, hands twitching against her face.

"I know there's many in the younger generation that look on him favorably; all those blinded by their admiration." the head continued, oblivious to Kankuro's silent rise. "But let's not bother with pretenses- most of the village looks on him in fear, no one really believes in him!"

He stopped when Kankuro's shadow casted over his face.

Kankuro reacted violently, grabbing the Head's clothing and jerking him to his feet. "I don't care if you are a council member!" he exploded, snarling at the top of his lungs. "I am not gonna listen to this!"

Fumiko stood up, hurriedly wiping her eyes, and stumbled away from her huge stone chair, almost tripping on it. As she fled the room, sobbing finally, she could hear Kankuro snapping "Now look what you did!"

Fumiko bumped into someone on the way out but didn't see who it was, stumbling down the hall until she couldn't hear people talking anymore, until she stopped passing concerned servants, until she turned a corner and it was empty and she just leaned back against a wall with her hands pressed to her face, shaking her head.

Then she just screamed and screamed and screamed until her voice was hoarse again, and slid down to the floor.

...

~ "And I don't even have to be worried, 'cause you can't get sick!" ~

...

"Okay," Mai said, popping her right shoulder. "Who's the sonuvabitch and what'd he say?"

"Mai-"

"Shut it, Baki. That girl right there? My sister? I've never seen her cry. Not once in my entire life. Oh, I'm sure she has," she spat, waving off Baki's comment before he could make it. "But not in front of or for anyone else but Gaara. So: who's the dog?"

"That is extremely disrespectful, child!"

"So it was you? Explains why Kankuro looks like he wants to knock you in two."

"Young lady, this is an esteemed official-"

"Bullcocky." Mai sneered. "I don't see a Kazekage."

"Listen to me, Kankuro," Ebisu said gently. "Your anger is certainly understandable. But there's an element of truth to what he says. We have to face the facts here. And this isn't an issue of how trustworthy we believe Gaara to be."

Kankuro's fingers loosened. He all but threw the Head back into his seat, but he did let him go.

Mai was still pissed, though, because one thing she did not expect to see in a hallway, in mourning or not, was Fumiko, crying, running away, too blind to see that Mai had been crying. Which was so unacceptable on so many levels it was wrong.

The man was still coughing. It was amazing that he had been able to find the breath to chastise her in the beginning- he really was worthless. Less than. How did people like that end up on Sunagakure's council?

"What. did. you. say. to my sister."

"I merely-" he huffed. "Merely spoke the truth."

"This is total bull," Mai hissed, jabbing her finger at them- all of them. "Bull! It was about Gaara, wasn't it? You call me disrespectful- me! At least I'm not a slimy uragirimono that turns on her leader the second he's no longer useful! Kami! Gaara is better than the lot of you!" She paused, thinking. "Uh, not talking to you guys, Baki and Kankuro."

"Mai-chan-"

"I just lost a lot of things," she spat. "And I don't care if I'm just a stupid twelve year old. I know what loyalty is."

And that was too much to say- too much to let go. She turned, fuming, and slammed the giant door to the giant room behind her, hoping that Kankuro would finish what he had started and finish off the cruel idiot.

As she stormed through the hallway, she smashed her fist into the wall. Her hand didn't go through since she was moving so fast; just glanced off and left a dent that Gaara would ask about later when they brought him back and make her fix.

If he was even alive when they brought him back.

If that happened and Fumiko went off the deep end and she went off the deep end and burned them to goddamned ashes before they managed to kill her then there wouldn't be much left for anyone to complain about, would there? Not enough people left that would dare to complain. Fumiko. Gaara. Herself. Perhaps Kankuro, as well, and Temari, they were good at speaking their minds.

But the rest of them- those people who were perfectly content with the way things were, with focusing themselves completely on keeping things the way they were. Like a bunch of animals blindly following each other, all of them thinking the rest of the herd knew which way to go- when really they were all gleefully headed toward a cliff.

Dashed idiots. All of them!

...

~ Gaara smiled at her a little, a tiny rise of one side of his lips. He peered closer at her probably red face, brushing a bit of his hair aside. As he did, his kanji showed, stark and red. ~

...

Fumiko found herself outside the wall sometime later. She didn't remember much about walking there- a few watery memories of sound and touch. Not really any colors. But this- this was better.

The sand. The wind. The heat. It blew across her face, dusting gold into her skin. It was high noon, and burning hot, but she didn't care. It felt, almost like there was touch seeping through her clothes, airless comfort she couldn't hold on to.

The sand had always helped her. It was like Gaara- ever shifting, blown this way and that by the wind, angry, calm, restless; but constant- you couldn't walk outside without feeling it or seeing it, whether you walked into a sandstorm or a day without wind. Golden and noticeable and there, unassuming but huge. Life itself revolved around the sand here.

She sat on the pile of sand seemingly miles high and wide, maybe two thirds of the way up so she could see farther into the horizon. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, chin resting lightly on her kneecaps. Her arms were wound tightly around her legs- it hurt, but that was fine. Fumiko's ankle didn't hurt at bad as it had before, which was good.

She stared off into the distance, reveling in the warmth of the sand around her. It was so thick and soft that she almost sank in it. This pile hadn't always been here, either- perhaps another reason why she was so reminded of Gaara here. This was the place he had dumped all that sand- this was the giant shield. Here and there there were fragments of glass where the sand had melted and charred pieces of things that had been in the sand when it was picked up.

Her eyes were trained on the line of desert in the distance- the bumpy line illuminated by the skyline.

Fumiko didn't know what she was waiting for. A sign, maybe. Another bird from Chiyo. It had been six days now- less than one since Chiyo's message. The kidnapping, her fight, caring for Kankuro, six days of constant confusion and uncertainty. She didn't like being uncertain. It was unpleasant, not knowing how you were going to feel in a few seconds- sad? Angry? Something deeper- melancholy, or betrayal?

Betrayed by what? The world? It was so stupid.

Or nothing. She had felt emptiness. That was worse, in her opinion, than the sadness or the anger or anything else. She had never been empty. Of course she had been sad before. And she had gotten mad on more than one occasion. Just because she wasn't bitter often didn't mean she was nothing but happiness. She just chose to be happy most of the time.

She liked... feeling. It made her feel human. Perfectly, glowingly, happily human, free to feel, free to choose what to feel, free to play, to feel the sun on her skin, to help others, to learn new things and enjoy things and... well, free to be free. This wasn't free. This was being trapped inside her own skin.

She sat there and focused on the mirage like heat in the distance, waiting for figures to cross into her line of sight.

Because really, there was nothing else to wait for but tears.

...

~ "Apparently you can." ~

...

After that meeting and the useless, restless hours following it, Fumiko lost track of time.

Days passed. She wasn't sure how many exactly- two, or three. She didn't feel like eating or sleeping. People tried- people filing in and out, Mai, the cooks, the servants, other ninja that she knew, her friends from the hospital, children she had helped or seen around her studio. Her mother came by, and her father, who tried to fight with her, but looked taken aback when she said nothing, silently working.

There were moments where she was rendered entirely useless, paralyzed by fear, or overtaken by sorrow. The rest of the time she worked, or waited outside the walls, staring or flipping through tens of dozens of bingo books to identify the two strangers and their Akatsuki teammates. Advisors and Heads were chased out with writing brushes. Family and friends were pushed away or ignored.

There were no mirrors in the Kazekage's office, so there was no need to see what she felt. Reflected in concerned eyes she could see that her insomiac circles were deepening, growing as dark as the bruises underneath her bandages. They looked like bruises themselves against the paleness of her face.

Fumiko didn't like looking at their eyes.

Hundreds of papers passed underneath her fingers. Ink stained her hands. Words filtered past her vision. T&I, she knew now that Gaara was no longer shifting away what he didn't want her to see into hidden drawers before she took over, stood for Torture and Interrogation. There were still stupid things- how were people still naming their kids and coming from other Lands?

Ripped apart by her fingers- against regulation of course, but who cared- were the many requests for orders to other countries for black fabric.

...

~ "I know! I can't stop- achoo! getting sick." ~

...

"It's just that... that..." Kankuro's fisted hands loosened at his sides and he sighed, ragged. "This is Gaara. He's... he's my little brother."

Kankuro realized somewhere along the way that his words had been true.

...

~ "You should stop playing outside when it's cold," Gaara pointed out. ~

...

To hell with them, to hell with all of them!

To hell with Akatsuki and the Heads and everyone who had ever doubted her and anyone who had ever doubted her siblings and to hell with her father and with Yuri and every other spy that had vanished mysteriously from the village, to hell with them all!

Her punching bags could take a lot. They were good, solid leather, ordered from the smaller, non-shinobi villages of the Land of Fire, dyed red or blue, filled with pounds and pounds of sand, hung by heavy-duty chain from the ceiling of her sister's old room, which she had had reinforced.

There were blades and swords and wire on the floor. Paper bombs hung precariously from the edges of beds and chairs. A yellow and blue painted mask that resembled a squirrel's- no buck teeth, she had always poked fun at his lack of buck teeth- lay on her homework desk that she never used anymore save for the occasional mission report. The papers from the desk were scattered underneath it. Her own mask, the Jackal mask, was on the bed.

Scattered, half empty blue or red bags were thrown in various places, spilling sand. The were poked with holes. Two lengths of broken chain lay curled like snakes a few feet away from her at either side, on opposite sides of the room.

Her bags were strong. She was strong. But, much like her, enough hits, enough rage-fueled hits, and they would break or fall or rip away from the ceiling.

That had never mattered before. Actually, it was usually a point of pride for her- how many bags could she get through in any given day? More than she should, probably. But now it just pissed her off- things needed to stop breaking, stop falling apart!

Heavy pants swirled through the air, stained with sweat and blood from her knuckles.

Her sheaths had been unbuckled. They were somewhere, she didn't know. Damn, she needed to move out. That was one of the reasons she'd wanted to become a chuunin so badly- yes, to get stronger, yes, to earn respect, but also to get emancipated by the village- until she was sixteen, unless she was a chuunin, Genin ninja or not, she couldn't move into one of the Genin apartments without parental permission.

Which, of course, she couldn't get. Because, on top of all the other broken things, she had a broken parent. A broken sperm donor. Goddamn.

She kept punching and punching and punching, hoping that eventually she would hang up a bag that wouldn't ever break.

...

"You do too!" ~

...

Swear, that's what it is.

"Gaara..."

"No. No, that won't ever happen again. You won't ever have to catch me lying again. Don't worry about that."

Kami the happy memories.

Such a fool...

...

~ He smiled again, pulling the already warm rag off her forehead and dipping it in the bucket again. The little room filled with the drippy sound of water as he squeezed and shook the excess out before folding it and putting it back on her face. ~

...

She was back on the sand, again.

"Fumiko-sama-"

"I'm not hungry."

"Fumiko-sama... it's cold outside."

"I don't care, I have long sleeves on."

"Fumiko-sa-"

"I want to be alone right now."

"... Yes, Fumiko-sama."

...

~ "But I don't get sick, remember? And I only play out there because you make me." ~

...

"Somewhere out there is the Akatsuki hideout," Temari murmured to the cool night wind. The trees said nothing back. She leaned her elbows against the wall's top. "Gaara... I'm sorry."

...

~ Fumiko pouted. "But it's so hard to look at the stars from my window!" ~

...

"You really should eat something, Fumiko."

"Go away, Yoshiki."

"No."

Fumiko closed her eyes, brush stilling. "Then leave me alone."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you're killing yourself," was his simple reply. Yoshiki was leaning back against the wall in front of Gaara's desk, in the little stool she had always borrowed. He didn't seem to realize how stiff that made her, the trembling tightness in her body. She wanted to cry, but had decided not to, decided that maybe that was one thing she could control.

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are. You're acting like a widow, which is stupid. You said yourself that Gaara wasn't dead yet, right?"

Yet.

"Yes."

"Then why the hell are you acting like this?"

Fumiko didn't answer him. Why, after all these years of being the first one to leave, was he the only one that wouldn't? Fumiko didn't know whether or not she appreciated it. After all, it was what she had always wanted- to be good friends with him, the one who had taught her what a good friend was- before the circumstances had arisen to test it.

But she couldn't help wondering if he would be acting the same way if Gaara were here. Gaara, who would never give up on her no matter how bitter she was acting. Gaara who would stay by her and say nothing. Fumiko had this feeling- she didn't know what it was, something dark and petty and angry- that if Gaara were here Yoshiki would leave her to fend for herself.

"Fumiko, answer me."

"No. I'm working."

"Hell, Fumiko." The two front legs of the stool clunked back against the floor as he leaned forward. "It's like you're giving up on him. This isn't like you at all and I want to know why and I want to know now."

"Why do you care?"

He fell silent; maybe he flinched, she didn't look up to see.

"Okay, I've been shitty, I know that. But I'm still your friend, right?" Yoshiki's voice was almost pleading. Please? Like always.

"Of course you are," she said dully.

"I still want to know."

"I still don't want to answer you. I told you, I'm working."

Fumiko dipped her brush into the ink again, dabbed it against the side, and brought it back down to paper. What was this one about- another secrecy act, eh? Nobody who had been visiting Sand at the time could tell anyone outside of the village what had happened.

It was amazing that the most horrible week and a half of her life was unknown to anyone outside the village- it felt like enough emotion to fill the entire world. Suna should implode from the sheer intensity of it.

"I'm not giving up on you, Fumiko."

"Like you hadn't?"

Ahh! That wasn't her voice; that wasn't even her thought!

"... Fumiko, I..."

"Yoshiki, not right now. It's dangerous right now."

"What is?" he demanded.

"Me." she said forcefully, slamming her empty palm against the table.

Her signature was wobbly.

"You, dangerous?"

"No. Dangerous to me. Will you just stop, Yoshiki?"

"I-"

"I want to be your friend," she murmured. "I do. I do."

She did. She always had. But something was wispy inside her, something fragile, something that could warp if poked. Fumiko was scared that if she let herself stop to ponder it, or if someone tried to mess with it, something would change. She liked being herself. She didn't want to... change.

This seemed to silence him, if only for a moment or two. Fumiko swapped papers at least three or four times. There was no clock in the Kazekage's office; Gaara hadn't been able to stand it's constant ticking. She was grateful for that, at least. She wouldn't have wanted something to count down like that- one second, two seconds closer to the end of the world.

...

~ "Fumiko, hide and seek is not looking at the stars." ~

...

The pain was fading away.

Gaara felt like nothing.

All of the memories were slipping, draining away like melting ice from his skin, leaving him cold and numb and empty until there were only feelings left, the lingering warmth and horrible guilt that remained of his thoughts, and then those were gone, too.

A shell.

There was whiteness, the voices dripping away just like the pain and the memories and the feelings.

A hand there, so out of place. Like what? Pale, abruptly so.

Who's... hand is this?

It... it's mine!

Oh.

Does this mean... Dying. I've become someone people need?

The fingers moved, enough that he could see something behind it. Intrigued, he lowered the hand- he couldn't feel it but it moved; how strange was that?

Who are they?

Two figures, a boy and a girl, standing just too far apart, both wreathed in the bright, soft white light like clouds. The boy wasn't really looking at anything, just stared and existed, a figment, perhaps, of his imagination. Is that me? Him. It was him.

The girl had her head turned, watching him, and then it moved and she was looking at him, at him, not the other figure, but at him, expectantly, eyes a little sad, big and brown, but she was still smiling, hands cupped against her throat, trapping the pendant of a necklace made of some thin white line underneath her fingers; an angel, with slowly rippling brown wings that were actually a cloak.

Did I mean anything to them?

He, himself, too, thought it was strange to wonder if he meant anything to himself, but the brown angel, did he mean anything to her?

Gaara couldn't remember.

...

~ Fumiko laughed, then started to cough, sitting up as she did so. The rag fell off her head. Gaara moved instantly to help her, hands on her back and shoulder, and as soon as she was done eased her back down and replaced the rag. "Easy." ~

...

"Then be my friend," Yoshiki said.

"What?"

"It's been over a week since he went missing."

"Yeah."

"And you have a bad feeling, don't you?"

Her hands stilled.

The whispering voice that slid out of her throat was deadly.

"What?"

...

~ "Gaara, my throat hurts." ~

...

I wanted to be needed... why... why did I want that?

Why did I yearn for that?

Those eyes... that nose... that mouth. Why?

... Why is that Gaara?

That smile, that forgiving smile.

Gah, forgive me.

And then, with a slow blink, the angel's face, his face, they blurred, indistinct, white. White? White. It was... pretty. Something even...

even who...?

... couldn't make.

Somewhere, along the line of blurriness and clarity, he knew that he had been forgiven.

...

~ "I know. Do you want some water?" ~

...

Snap.

Yoshiki stared at her, the remnants of their glare-off still traced across his face. "What? What is it?"

Oh Kami.

She couldn't breath. Something shivered deep inside her. Throb, throb. The world pulsed visibly. Oh my Kami, no.

Pulse, pulse.

Her fingers shook open, and the vibrating pieces of her writing brush trembled out of her limp palm onto the desk. She couldn't see on Yoshiki's face her shock- her widening eyes and open mouth; her twitching body.

"-umiko? Fumiko-"

She stood up suddenly, too suddenly; her arms tortured her to stop, her neck burned, her ribs burned, everything burned, like a painful fever, even the air shuddering through her lungs, and something was missing, Sugar, something was gone and she knew, just knew what it was, be wrong be wrong be-

"Fumiko," Yoshiki was standing now, took her wrists as she rushed around the corner of the desk to get at the door. "No more waiting by the sand. I'm here for you now. You need to understand that!"

"If you say one more word," she hissed out, voice surprisingly steady despite the trembling in her body, "I will never talk to you again."

Then she tore herself away, leaving him behind, gaping after her back as she slammed the door between them.

...

~ "No. Stay with me. Please." ~

...

Mai tore her arm out of the busted bag and howled.

"Stop breaking!"

...

~ Gaara's tense worry seemed to relax, and he pulled her blanket back up to her chin. He leaned forward in his chair and rested his head against his arms on the edge of the bed. His voice was quiet when he spoke again. "As long as you want. I'm not going anywhere." ~

...

There was a sudden thunk, then a crash like shattering glass.

Kankuro sat bolt upright, jolting out of an almost-sleep. Glancing over, he saw the back of his picture frame lying on the floor, surrounded by pieces of glass.

Grunting, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and heaved himself up. It took only two quiet steps, and then he knelt down onto one knee and reached out a heavy arm and picked it up. Goddamn, he was tired. The effects of the poison left him weak, even after all the days of sleeping and doing nothing.

He squinted at the picture. It was of him and Temari with Gaara right after his inauguration as Kazekage- an official photo of the Kazekage along with his two chosen guards. Just hours after the picture had been taken, they had been sworn under his lead.

The photograph itself wasn't damaged, thank Kami. But the glass was splintered and shattered. Kankuro frowned, teeth baring.

That can't be a good sign, Kankuro thought.

...

~ Fumiko smiled. "I want forever." ~

...


	5. How to Say Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts are, of course, not italicized.

...

Moonlight sparkled in through the windows imbedded in their bedroom walls. Just as it did every night, it made their blue bedspread brighter, a star itself. ~

...

Fumiko ran like she was trapped in a nightmare, devilish, but unable to stay on her feet, always just ahead of whatever was chasing you.

But you couldn't die in dreams. This thing was nasty and it would catch up quick but she wouldn't let it she would not let it she refused and so she ran and ran and ran to the village gates, hands stained with ink, old bandages on her skin and tears sparkling in the air behind her.

She pushed and shoved and rolled people out of her way. There was no black in the crowds yet, for which she was intensely grateful- how did you express that? Thanks for not thinking my best friend isn't dead when he oh so clearly just

No, no, no.

Trip. Fall. Get back up.

Voices- Are you okay? Fumiko-sama, Fumiko-sensei? What's wrong? Why are you crying? Where are you going? Faces flashed by, indistinct and unrecognizable, black silhouettes against a tan and sand yellow streaking backdrop. It is high noon again, but now the heat holds no comfort. Now it makes her dizzy and flushed, makes the sand burn her skin wherever she falls.

...

~ And, just like every night- albeit late- there were two figures in the bed, under the covers. One was sound asleep, sprawled across most of the bed like a starfish, with one arm flung up past her head so her fingertips touched the headboard, the other hanging off the side of the bed. ~

...

Mai stares at the busted bag. It is her last one. It was her last one two hours ago. Now things are broken everywhere- her shattered window, her newly cracked floor, her spotted wall; her door, her desk, two stools and the frame of her bed. And her father's nose, when he had come after the mess she was making.

Kami, she had always, always wanted to do that. Number three on her Bucket list: Punch Father in the nose. She hadn't meant to break it, but it served him right. He was in the kitchen now sitting on a chair while mom set it and healed it for him. Two checks on that.

Her mom was a little bit broken, too, though she had never seen it in that light before now. How could she still love him? He wasn't who he had been eight or nine years ago. Why was it that Gaara had changed everyone in the Mitsuwa family for the better except for him?

Thinking about it, her entire life was fragmented. The self-esteem was just being able not to care- her crippled sister, the bullies, the lack of friends, her parents, her intensity, her shinobi secrets, killing people, sharpening her swords and writing out tags instead of paying for them, being infertile, her taicho, Gaara, the detachment she felt from reality; from herself.

Kankuro was right about something, for once. Something was wrong with her. She wanted- Kami, she wanted to chase those Akatsuki down and be bull-headed and rash and say smartass things to piss them off and then cut them, stab them, burn and char them, bury them two hundred feet under. But she wanted that in the way someone wanted to ace a subject they sucked at- like it was a daydream, like she knew it wasn't possible.

And it wasn't. Maybe Squirrel-taicho hadn't been the strongest ANBU, but he had been the craftiest, and the most stubborn, and- and- and her taicho. Taichos didn't just die. Or Mai guessed maybe they did and the world was just stupid; giving power to people who shouldn't have it.

Maybe like her, but that wasn't the point.

If she went out there she would die.

And somewhere deep inside, she didn't want to die.

...

~ The other just lie there, wide awake, in a perfectly straight line, arms resting on his stomach. Gaara turned his head- just as he did every other night- to watch her sleep. ~

...

The sand, the sand.

She popped a soldier pill between her teeth and crunched it; it was horrible and bitter and salty and gross and dry but she chewed it and she swallowed it and it filled her up with energy inside. Before the chakra could seep away she closed her first gate, then her second, then put her hands together in the jutsu sign of the Boar, then the Dog, then the Bird, then the Monkey, then the Ram, slowly and precisely.

She bit her thumb, resisting the urge to mutter ow but doing so anyway, then clapped her open palm against the ground.

It took her three tries to make the jutsu work. She was too jumpy- too nervous, too shaky, too anxious too angry too upset and too numb to really focus on her gates and so chakra spilled out here and there like a patchwork cup.

On the third try, a spiderweb of Kanji spilled away from her hand.

This wouldn't be fun but it was important and if the bat didn't like it well, the bat could deal wih it. Shaapu disliked her the most- but he was the only one big enough that could carry her that she had the ability- and power- to summon.

There was a big whuff of smoke, then the bat was glaring at her. Fumiko had been surprised to learn that bats could glare. But she had learned quickly that they were very stingy animals, always sniffing or huffing, especially if she summoned them in broad daylight, which was exactly what she had just done.

Shaapu was bigger than her, way bigger than her. Fumiko had to look all the way up, craning her neck just to see his eyes. He was, in fact, almost as big as the clay bird Deidara had used, only furrier and angrier.

"Sightseer," Shaapu hissed.

"Shaapu," Fumiko said quietly back, although her voice was high and raggedy and her face was flushed. She could tell that for half a second the bat was taken aback- Fumiko looked beyond injured with her bandages and her pale sallowness and her dark eyes and the blood seeping out of her mouth like she'd been stabbed through the middle. Then the summon seemed to shake herself and rose to his full height.

These bats were blind. But their echolocation was almost better than her own sight, just without real color. Shaapu could feel the grimy uncleanliness of her skin, the bumps underneath her eyes, the stiff bandages about her arms and chest and neck. In speaking alone they could get a full radar of their surroundings. Shaapu probably hadn't been expecting this.

"Why have you summoned me, Sightseer?"

"I need your help."

"Oh, do you? You just barely manage to summon me and now you think you need help? Pah. Help yourself."

"I'm not letting you leave until you listen to me," Fumiko bit out. Usually she kept no hold on her summons and they disappeared almost the same time they appeared, but there was a way to bind them. "Until you help me."

"Please! You can barely stand. How are you going to find the energy to keep me here?" But the bat's wings ruffled uncertainly, and Fumiko knew he had already tried to leave. But Fumiko had a tight hold on his chakra. She was weak, she was exhausted, and she felt like a giant open sore being chased by a knife. But she was not about to sit about and be useless.

"I am going to keep you here and I am going to do so until you listen to me, Shaapu. This is not the time to hate me."

"All Sightseers are hateful creatures. You Sand Shinobi are all so smug. You demand that we help you when we do not wish to, to solve your petty problems or to fight in wars. I do not want to help you, Sightseer. Release me before I attack you." Shaapu glared.

To his probable surprise, Fumiko curled up her lips, almost hissing at him. "I have never made you do anything! Ever! I have been nothing but nice to you and all te others! Believe me, this isn't a petty problem. But it might be a war, I don't know. I don't care."

Noticing the fire in her glare, the bat blinked. "Wait just a moment," he said quietly. "Where is the sand one?"

"Gaara?" Fumiko's heart heaved and raced. The word slipped out of her mouth less like a question and more like a half-groan, half-sob. Shaapu had probably been able to sense the sand hovering about her best friend's body... "He's gone. I..." I think he's dead. "I need to find him!"

"You Sightseers need a lot of things."

"Shut up, you stupid bat!" Fumiko had no idea where the anger was coming from, and she hated it, but she was prickling and aching in all the wrong ways. There was pain in places she didn't even know were supposed to hurt. She needed to move. "You have no idea what I need! You don't know anything!"

"What did you say to me, Sightseer? I ought to-"

"I need to fly," Fumiko said after taking a few deep breaths, calmer this time. "And if you help me just this one time, I will never summon you or any one of your species again without your permission."

...

~ It quieted his demon. No- it gave him the strength to force the horrid beast to be quiet. ~

...

"What do you mean she's gone?"

"I mean she's gone, Kankuro-sama. Nobody can find her."

Kankuro swore, quickly getting up from where he had been sitting. He hefted Crow, his one repaired puppet, and slung it over his shoulder. "We're going to look for Gaara and the other Konoha shinobi, anyways. We'll catch up."

Kankuro relaxed slightly at his own words. If anyone would be able to find Gaara, it was Fumiko. If Naruto was there at the same time... Fumiko would be fine. Now it was just a matter of playing catch up. He didn't feel sluggish anymore, although there were moments of weakness in his joints.

He needed to find Mai. She had been a little off lately, but Kankuro knew thart she would still try to kill him if he left her out of this... Temari wasn't due to show up at the steps for at least another half hour, so he had just enough time. He waved off the worried shinobi- plural. Kankuro hadn't realized just how loved Fumiko had become in the village until now, when she and Gaara both were missing.

...

~ There were a few wild slivers of brown hair splayed across her nose. Gaara, feeling the urge to brush them away, did so. It was easier to touch her when she was asleep. It wasn't that she looked more peaceful- she always looked this peaceful- but that she seemed more vulnerable. ~

...

Fumiko had an unexplainable sense of dread. The feeling was uncomfortable and not at all wanted, but she had one nonetheless- not quite the same as she had felt for the past week and a half, but worse. The next time somebody asked her why she was always so happy, Fumiko would tell them to be sad for a while and decide which one they liked best.

She flew long and hard on the large bat, scanning the desert with attentive eyes. There was nothing, only sand and sand and desert, along with the occasional patch of rocks or forest or water. Frustratingly enough, she had no idea where to go, other than a vague 'the Land of Rivers'.

She, of course, had started where her and Kankuro's battle had occurred, and from there she flew in the direction the blond man on clay had headed. After a few yards, though, all Fumiko could do was go high and straight and hope she spotted something.

When she found them- and it was a when, not an if- there would be hell to pay. Forgiveness and smiles be damned. The Akatsuki had messed with the wrong kazekage, the wrong village, and the wrong girl. She would crush the one-armed Deidara and the rest of them in her summon's talons.

Fumiko scowled, and for the first time in her life, she wanted to hurt somebody. It was a bitter feeling that she didn't enjoy, but she had to find Gaara, and then make sure the Akatsuki never hurt him again.

Gaara hadn't looked so good when he had been carried off. Although she had been far below, she'd seen enough through the binoculars before she had broken them. Cracks lined his armor, and he'd used all his strength protecting the village. Fumiko and everyone else in Suna would be dead and incinerated if he hadn't given himself to save them.

The bat tilted suddenly and shot down a few feet just to spite her before Fumiko managed to regain control. She wasn't used to this yet.

"Stop that!"

"Hmph."

She concentrated her energy into controlling the animal and watching the ground for activity. Her mind filled with the gentle sound of the bat's wings and her own torments for a while. Minutes passed. Fumiko was absorbed in her thoughts.

What if she couldn't find him? No, she would find him, she knew she would find him.

But...

... when she found him...

would he even be...

Something broke the steadily growing monotone of trees- a thin strip of grassy field punctuated by a flowing river and a large cliffside rock. There was a red gate border, the only thing left standing in a minefield of ruins. What could only have been a cave was crushed and collapsed, rocks scattered with bits and pieces of what looked disturbingly like body parts from this high up.

Fumiko shuddered. "Shaapu, down!"

"Shaapu, fly, Shaapu, down," the bat muttered. "Shaapu this, Shaapu-"

"Please."

Shaapu went down.

Sliding off the bat, Fumiko felt her foot splash into water. Her sandal was soaked in seconds- she had never learned to water-walk, and she doubted she would be able to learn anytime soon. Luckily, some of the destroyed cave rocks had rolled into the water, and so it was shallow enough for her to stand on, although the water came up to her knees, completely submerging her prosthetic. She would have to dry the parts out later or they would rust.

Fumiko stumbled across the rocks, searching, searching, and there was a destroyed piece of a human puppet- horror stories told by Kankuro of the Puppet Corps. and Sasori of the Red Sand. Those pieces were everywhere, a leg here, a head there; and under her foot, a fragment of a finger. These were human body parts, Fumiko realized all at once; except that they were long, long dead, made into puppets by-

"Oh, sugar," Fumiko whispered. "... Sasori."

...

~ There had been another attempt today. An assassination attempt. Only, not for him. Well, for him, but he hadn't been in his office. He'd stepped out for only just one second to head to a meeting. ~

...

Maybe it was stupid.

But at the exact moment that Kankuro realized he had absolutely no idea where Mai lived... he realized he had absolutely no idea where Mai lived.

How nuts was that? They trained together constantly, not to mention how often Fumiko was around even before Mai had become a person he knew by name. How had he never been to their house in one way or another?

Luckily, he had seen Gaara's back a lot as he went off in the direction of Fumiko's house before she moved in, so he knew the general direction. Considering the half hour disappearance before the both of them had always come back, he could also assume it was somewhere around fifteen minutes out in that general direction and fifteen minutes back. Suna had a lot of alley-ways, but they were all straight.

All of the apartments in Suna looked exactly the same. Al the streets, all the shops, on the outside everything looked the same. No graffiti, really. Because of this there were no 'bad' areas of Suna. The only real priorities of living were being as close to the water supply as possible- you still got the same water-ration, but you got it faster and colder- and living up in the top-floors (although there were more stairs to climb, it was totally worth it when the sandstorms hit.)

Crow was just starting to feel heavy on his back when he heard it.

"You... sick!"

"I... her father! You..."

"No... TO ME!"

Kankuro paused, glancing around for a second. The voices were familiar enough. The female he could easily identify as Mai- if he couldn't recognize her by her yelling by now then he would be stupid- but the other he didn't know at all.

Mai loved to rant. It was one of her favorite things to do. If you poked and prodded the right buttons, she would explode and rant and rant and rant about everything. One had to be careful about it, though- if you said the wrong things she would clam up, and then she would clam you up.

One of her sorest spots ever was her father. My dad this and my dad that, he said this and he did that... Kankuro had to admit that the Mitsuwa sisters had had just as sore a childhood as Gaara's in a different way. While Gaara's father completely ignored him aside from the occasional assassination attempt, their father was mean and cruel and liked to shut them down.

Gaara also liked to hate the guy. One or two rare brotherly heart to hearts were plenty enough to reveal that much. It frustrated Gaara to no end that Fumiko still cared about the donkey.

The door about three houses down on the bottom level was open, cracked slightly, which was where the voices were coming from, still going at it, snarling like dogs in the ring. Kankuro had to admit that his voice was rough and obnoxious and way too loud.

Was this the infamous 'dad'? The notorious 'Fukuda'?

If it was then he totally was in the mood to be useful and kick some serious ass.

...

~ Gaara had learned what had happened only a half hour later when his meeting was over. As soon as he did he had regretted ordering that no one disturb them. ~

...

He was broken on the ground, dead already. On either side of him lay broken puppets, not human like the rest, but wooden. A few here and there she recognized to wear shredded white cloaks. Chiyo's Ten Puppets. But who were these puppets, who almost looked like Sasori, Sasori facedown on the rocks with blades poking out of his chest?

She collapsed to her knees, skin scraping on the jagged broken rocks, half-planning to heal him, but when she finally tugged out the blades, breaking the puppets' wooden fingers, she realized it was too late. One by one the weapons clanged away, skittering on the rock. She turned him over, fingers of her hands already sparkling green, but then she stopped.

What was... what?

His body was- joints- a blade sticking out of one, twisted like- a doll's.

Human puppets.

Something in his chest had long since stopped oozing something purple. His heart, Fumiko had to assume, the only part left to produce chakra.

She had known that Sasori had been inside of a puppet and only had a partial chakra system, but she would never have guessed... he looked exactly like his ninja ID picture in the bingo books. That were taken more than twenty years ago. People tended to age a bit in twenty years.

There was nothing here but a dead puppet. Fumiko couldn't sense Gaara or Uzumaki Naruto or anybody, but there was a maddeningly fresh wash of dark red-blue staining the air, as well as a much more prominent, dark ugly orange- Gaara had been here, yes. But in some form...

So had Shukaku.

Was she too late?

"No," she snarled at messy thoughts, almost startling herself at the sudden sound. Her teeth clenched. Sasori's puppet arm clanged to the ground as she stood, wobbling slightly on unsteady legs.

She spared one last look at the broken, messed up puppet body- and Sasori really did look a lot like Gaara, twisted how he was so it was harder to see the joints, with his red hair and pale skin and thin stature. But, but his wide staring eyes- that she couldn't close, they were jammed that way- they were red, and his face was rounder, more boyish than Gaara's was.

Still, it was unnerving.

What had happened here? She could- on the broken rocks, she could sense Chiyo and Sakura's residue- it was harder to pick theirs out from the overwhelming power of Gaara's, which was so strange. It had always been easier to pick out Gaara's, but this- it was almost like he was here. Like all of his chakra was here.

And Shukaku's.

There was bile in her throat; Fumiko forced herself to swallow. No. There was no body here.

Although Sakura and Chiyo might have...

No.

Fumiko turned and picked her way through the rocks back to the water, then mounted Shaapu, heaving herself over the bat's furry body. "Do you sense anything, Shaapu?"

Shaapu hissed. "I'm not a nin-ken," he snapped.

"And I'm not a shinobi," Fumiko growled back, surprising herself. "But here I am riding an irritable summon who isn't useless but likes to act like he is, looking for one. Shaapu, do you sense anything or not?"

A moment of agitated silence. Fumiko didn't back down, staring hard at the back of Shaapu's hairy head.

"... I do."

"Can you take me to it?"

"I can."

With a gust of wind and pebbles, Shaapu took to the skies, so abruptly Fumiko almost tumbled off but just tightened her hold and held on. Warmth radiated from his fur, seeping into her chilled skin as wind whipped her clothes and hair. Shaapu took off in what Fumiko only hoped was a particular direction, following the river and the lines of mismatched logs stuck into the cliffs.

...

Fumiko had been in his office. ~

...

The voices got louder as he eased the door open and slipped inside.

"... just a bitter old man who'll never get anywhere in life, so you take it out on your perfectly independant kids because we're supposed to worship the ground you walk on but we couldn't care less!"

Mai's cheeks were flushed. She paused in her screaming.

"... That's it, isn't it?" she said more quietly, like ice. Kankuro could see her from the hall, just a sliver of her front and a bunch of her father's back in a gap in the hall, probably leading to a kitchen or dining room or something. "In the one place you're supposed to have the most control, you have none. Well, newsflash, dad: losers can't tell me what to do."

Kankuro reached out his hand and wrapped his fingers around Gaara's sash. "One set of scrolls is good enough! It's all we need to pass!"

Gaara's eyes narrowed at him, and then he said, in a very deliberate tone, "Losers can't tell me what to do."

"You little brat," Mai's father hissed, snapping Kankuro out of his thoughts- Goddamn she was so much like Gaara but the opposite- "You're my daughter."

And then he did something really stupid.

He slapped her.

Mai let him, although Kankuro was sure she could have easily stopped the civilian and broken his arm just for the hell of it. Her head snapped to the side, arms still loosely against her sheaths. Thick black unruly hair curtained over her face, blocking it from view for a few moments. Kankuro stepped closer, careful not to alert either of them, but twitching slightly at the harsh sound.

Then she stretched her neck, head rolling back into place. Her eyes burned like fire, hard and set like granite. Her grin now was too wide and twitched on one side, slanted so much Kankuro wondered for a second if she was tilting her head.

"You're wrong, dad," she whispered. "I'm not your anything."

"Hey," Kankuro said at last, and was surprised at the dangerous tone of his own voice. "You should really take a step back."

They both jumped, Mai's head whipping about, almost identical to her father. They really did look a lot alike. Mai's searching eyes found his instantly, then widened. He had surprised her. That alone was enough to show that she was stressed past her limit.

"You," her father spat.

"Me," Kankuro agreed. "Don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting you yet."

"Kankuro," Mai snapped. "What are you doing here?"

"Came to get you. We're heading out soon to go after Gaara."

"The lot of you ninja are untrustworthy bastards that sneak around and cut the throats of sleeping folks. Kami damn it, that's what I was trying to tell Fumiko! This one can't be any better than Gaara, breaking into my house and ordering me around!"

Kankuro shrugged, sliding his hands into his pockets. "The door was open."

"I was just leaving anyway." Mai shot her father a disgusted look. "Where's Fumiko?"

"Fumiko's missing."

"Fumiko's what?"

"They think she set out on her-"

"Hold on just a second," Fukuda spat. "Nobody's going anywhere!"

"Sorry," Kankuro said easily. "You know us ninja: always sneaking around."

Mai rolled her eyes, although she still looked livid. Kankuro couldn't help but wonder what they had been fighting about. "If I wasn't leaving before, I'm definitely going now. Damn, I should've known to keep a better eye on her."

"She does tend to ignore the obvious when it comes to Gaara," Kankuro said. "Anyway, Temari'll be here in, like, five minutes, so we should really get going. Whatever this family thing is can wait. Right, Fukuda?"

Mai's cheek was starting to get a little red, but she just huffed and slipped past her father into the hallway and tried to pass Kankuro before he could react. And then he did react, reaching out after Mai's back.

Kankuro calmly pulled one leg up, hands still in his pockets, and kicked the lights out of Fukuda's chest.

The big guy flew back, screaming, and crashed into the wall at the end of the hallway. It cracked and shifted, peices falling off in fist-sized chunks. Kankuro leisurely put his foot back down, then turned around, ignorant of Fukuda's half-breathed curses. Okay, so maybe he'd used a little more force than he needed to.

But all things considered, not killing him was a feat of willpower that Kankuro was pretty damn proud of.

Mai scowled at him as they stepped toward the door. "I don't need you to protect me. I could have easily taken care of him myself."

Kankuro snorted out a laugh, putting his hands up to his shoulders in surrender. "Hey, I know that. I wasn't protecting you. I was just beating up an asshole. All in a day's work, you know?"

As they bickered through the door, a woman dropped her keys, staring gap-mouthed at the damage just over their shoulders.

"Hi, mom," Mai said. "I'm gonna find Gaara and Fumiko."

"Sorry for the mess, Mrs. Mitsuwa," Kankuro said. "I'll send a repair team in as soon as we get back."

...

~ Which, thinking about it, might have been an even better scenerio for an assassin, had his ANBU not been there. Gaara looked at her peaceful face and felt love, and tranquility, and fear. ~

...

As they traveled, the logs came even more mismatched- some of them were blown to pieces. Fumiko's heart thumped painfully in her chest. There was a painful whisper in the back of her mind that she couldn't completely quash despite her greatest efforts.

Why was Shukaku's chakra... out?

Not... mixed?

Lifetimes later, she felt a sudden spike in chakras all at once. She could barely sense them from this far away. Even though that was healthy- actully it was unusual that she picked chakras out as colors at all- it still frustrated her, and Fumiko promised herself then and there to practice that until she could sense every chakra signature in Suna. But, whether it was strong or not, it was close.

She detoured left as the bat flapped around in a sharp turn.

A mile or so after she turned, the thick expanse of trees grew grassier and trees thinned out here and there until the terrain turned into a grassy expanse of field- a meadow. Her eyes weren't great, but as she flew closer towards the chakra signatures, she could make out figures below her.

Fumiko pulled her Summon into a steep dive, and leveled off just before she would have smashed into the ground. Wind blew hair into her face and mouth as the bat flopped to a rocky landing a few feet away from the group of people, trying to throw her off.

The momentum of the jerk almost sent Fumiko flying, but she managed to stay on. She wiped the hair out of her face and jumped off, stumbling a little. Shaapu shook out his wings, looked at her almost sympathetically- for a bat, anyway- and with a puff, he was gone. Fumiko let him leave this time.

She ran the few feet toward the group of people that she recognized so well, and as she got closer, her anxiety only tripled. Granny Chiyo and Sakura, Temari and Lee and Tenten and Neji and Guy and Kakashi and Uzumaki Naruto all stood in a solemn, messy half-circle.

Well, all except for Uzumaki Naruto, who was facing the rest, head down; arm across his eyes as he tried to hide his tear-streaked face, crying loudly. His scars seemed more flared than usual. Uzumaki Naruto saw her first, accidentally as he raised his head just slightly.

"Huh- Fumiko?"

"Uzumaki Naruto," she said breathlessly. The ninja all whipped around at the sound of her voice, and Fumiko knew she must have looked like a mess- her eyes were puffed and red from hours of flying and crying, her hair was knotted and windswept to the point that where to try and brush it would be futile. She still had on her bandages on her neck and underneath the black long sleeved shirt but had to look worse than when they had last seen her.

But Fumiko didn't care about any of that- what she cared about was the sad and suddenly guilty expressions on their faces.

Uzumaki Naruto was crying.

Fumiko's lips trembled. Suddenly her legs didn't seem so sturdy, metal or not.

"N-no," she muttered to herself. Then she spoke in a warbly, tear-warped voice to her audience: "U-uzumaki Naruto… did you f-find him?"

Nobody could meet her eyes except for Neji, whose white irises drilled fear into her heart deeper than it had ever gone before. Fumiko froze. Neji's face was saddened.

Fumiko's eyes darted to Uzumaki Naruto, and he stared at his shoes.

"F… Fumiko-chan…"

Slowly, so very painfully slowly, Fumiko's eyes drifted down to Uzumaki Naruto's feet.

Her heart ripped itself in half, then fourths, until the pieces fell and broke in a shattered pile in her chest, the edges poking and ripping her insides. Fumiko sobbed.

...

~ He was always afraid. Fumiko would always be in danger, as long as he was a jinchuuriki and as long as he was Kazekage. And it wasn't like she was well protected identity-wise, either- everyone who had ears and eyes in this village knew her name, where she usually was, her status, his status. ~

...

"There's Temari," Mai said after almost ten minutes of pacing back and forth along the steps. Kankuro stayed seated, not exactly ready to get up and not exactly wanting to stay.

"What took you so long?" he said, smirking.

"I got back here as fast as I could," Temari panted. "And besides, you're the one who didn't send a replacement border guard soon enough."

...

~ Anyone who wanted needed only ask 'does the kazekage have a significant other' and that would be the end of that secret. ~

...

Fumiko saw the shock of red hair first. Then after a second, bracing herself, she let herself gaze over the rest of him. Gaara's skin, no longer cracked somehow- she knew how but didn't want to admit it to herself- was paler than ever and battered. His kanji showed clearly as his hair was gently blown in the breeze. The paint, Fumiko noticed numbly, was bright. It had been painted just a week and a half before.

His eyes were closed.

He looked like he was sleeping. Like he'd had a particularly tough day or battle, and was sleeping. He couldn't possibly be… he couldn't… there was no way…

Fumiko's body shook and tremors jerked her hands spastically. She felt the tremble rip through her core until everything was shaking and suddenly she felt so weak. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"… Gaara…"

Fumiko's voice was whisper-quiet, and crackled like old paper. It was so small and frail and bitter, hopeless, shattered; not Fumiko's voice at all, except that it was. She bit her lip and stared at his face. The tears spilled over onto her cheeks.

"Fumiko-"

A hand on her shoulder. Fumiko shook it off violently with a hiss, not particularly caring who it was. Her bangs covered her eyes, also for the first time, shading her vision, and tears rushed down her cheeks, dripping off her chin like a faucet that wouldn't turn off.

Fumiko turned a faltering step forward, and when she didn't collapse, took another. She stared at her prosthetic for a moment before taking another step, and soon she was standing directly in front of Uzumaki Naruto.

He was still crying, and when she looked up at him, he flinched. Fumiko looked back down. She saw her feet, one flesh, one metal. She saw Uzumaki Naruto's feet, both normal. Her hands hung loosely at her sides.

"Move."

"Fumiko-chan…"

She meant to push him, but her hand just smacked harmlessly against his chest, skidding across it until it almost dropped back down to her side. He sucked in a breath, but Fumiko didn't look back up at him, just at the ground. She could feel his orange shirt under her fingers.

"I… s-said… move."

Uzumaki Naruto stepped aside. Fumiko took a few more swaying steps, around the body, to the other side of him, staring down at her feet. She couldn't see it yet…

She saw his feet. Then the side of his waist. Then she couldn't walk anymore, and Fumiko collapsed to her knees next to her best friend's body. Her head bowed over him, and her fingers dug into his shirt. Not the kazekage clothes- his clothes, the clothes he wore to battle, the clothes he wore as he saved the village.

"Gaara. Gaara." she said forcefully in a strained voice. "Gaara. Gaara. Listen to me. Listen to me. Hey… Gaara." Fumiko stopped. Tears spilled down her cheeks when he didn't answer. "Love you."

There was nothing. No gravelly tones, no amused smile curling the sides of his lips just enough to qualify as a smile. No kiss. No blush. No reply. For the first time... Gaara wasn't answering her.

"I'll heal you," she said numbly. Her hands flared green-blue on his chest, startling the people around her, but she focused hard, seeping into him and spreading through his wounds.

Except that there weren't any wounds. Fumiko's mouth trembled, jaw clenching as she tried to heal nothing, pushing her chakra through systems that didn't exist, dead cells that weren't damaged. It dispersed instantly but she didn't, wouldn't, couldn't stop.

"Fumiko-"

"What's wrong with you?" She stammered, completely ignoring Neji's hesitant tone. "I'll heal you. I promise. I promise!"

Something sputtered in her chest; she let loose something like a strangled sob and closed her second gate. It was so easy now, so easy to use chakra but it wasn't helping him-

"C-… C'mon, Gaara." She whispered. Her voice barely worked and her throat was tight and painful. "Say it back. 'You too'… c'mon." There was a quiet pause in which Fumiko listened to her heartbeat. "Gaara?"

Fumiko felt with one hand the top of Gaara's neck. No pulse.

Slowly, bubbling and wrenching, somebody began to sob. Loud, raw, and shot through with sniffles and outraged babbling, it was frightening and unpleasant, the sound so broken and so full of loss that she almost wanted to go help whoever was making the noise, except she couldn't find the will.

It was a while later that Fumiko realized it was her that was crying.

...

~ Fumiko was incredibly naive. Gaara knew that. Naive, and misguided. But he loved that about her. The positivity, the childishness, all of it- somehow untouched. Impossibly intact. ~

...

That expression on this girl's face didn't fit.

It wasn't twisted, it was screwed up into a scream punctuated by sobs of words Neji couldn't have identified even if he'd been using his Byakugan. Tears literally poured down her cheeks, soaking the previous jinchuriki's shirt in moments.

Her fingers were claws, digging into the fabric of Gaara's clothing with an angry strength Neji had not as of yet seen from her, until now. The loud, wrenching cries almost made Neji want to close his eyes, which he never, under any circumstances, did unless he was sleeping.

It was never supposed to happen. Science and logic be damned, this girl, Fumiko, was not supposed to look like that. Fumiko and tears were never supposed to be used in the same sentence, be it Fates or cruelty or gods or Death that wanted to say it.

Neji didn't know which had uttered the words, but he found himself utterly loathing whoever had planned this. Wrote this out. Like a play destined for doom, it was unfair to the characters involved, and heartbreaking to the audience.

He stared. It made him uncomfortable. He remembered a time years ago when he would have called it Fate- the weak were destined to lose, be it a battle, or something precious. Years ago, he wouldn't have cared about shiny brown eyes or hoarse screaming, or the loss this girl felt. But now…

It didn't matter what his own feelings were. Even Neji could see what was made to be and what wasn't. He would never be held in such high regard to Fumiko as Gaara, and if he were to die…

Fate had no right to interfere. Not with this. Not with them.

...

~ But she knew so much about the world- even some of the bad. No, she wasn't childish- she just needed things more simply. Somewhere along the line she had distinguished need from unnecessary thoughts and somehow pulled them apart. ~

...

Yoshiki didn't quite know what to do.

Never talk to me again? he wondered. What would that be like? After so long of her always ready to talk and play with him, or hang out with him. But never without Gaara. Never without him.

He was certain Gaara was dead. It had been too long without some kind of ransom note- of course he was dead. And, although he felt almost horrified by it, that realization left him with a weary kind of relief. Like, finally. 

Yoshiki hated Gaara. He always had, ever since his mother had told him to, all the long time ago when Fumiko was his best friend and he was the one who knew everything about the world and taught her everything. Before she had met him, and that had been the end of that.

And the worst part about it all was that she wasn't being mean. She was just so freaking naive, and she never saw. He hated Gaara for such a stupid number of reasons, but Fumiko's constant happiness and forgiveness made it feel petty, like he was vile. Like he was wrong. And he probably was, but that didn't stop the ugly envy from bubbling up every time he saw them together. Laughing. Hugging. Kissing. Playing in the sand like two year olds.

And now was supposed to be his time- his time to hold her and comfort her and make everything okay.

But now she was angry. Holy crap, she was angry. She had snapped at him like she would rip his head off if he said another word. She had never been mad at him before. Not when he sided with her bullies. Not when he hated her best friend. Not when anything else had happened. But Kami, the second he tried to make up for it and be a good friend, she got all pissed at him!

Yoshiki loved Fumiko. He hated Fumiko. He hated Fumiko for not loving him. He hated Gaara for not letting her, despite how crazy that sounded. Fumiko would never love him, though. Not in that way. Yoshiki got the feeling that she would prefer crying in Gaara's arms at his funeral than in Yoshiki's at Gaara's. She would sooner die to be with the bastard than stay and be with a normal person.

Now he was lost, and she was reported missing- of course she was, what else had he expected her to do, storming out of the office like that?- and he was brooding, and empty, because nothing would ever change no matter what.

...

~ Gaara himself was fairly close to worthless. This he knew. In comparison, anyway. Unlike her, he understood everything wrong with the world- and it tormented him. Unlike her he would kill in a heartbeat to save his own life. There were a thousand others just like him. None, however, quite like her. ~

...

Sobs racked through her body, and her harsh crying was hoarse and loud but she didn't care because oh my Kami, Gaara was dead, dead, dead, dead! Her breaths rattled through her chest erratically.

Fumiko's stomach heaved and churned, and she had to choke down the urge to throw up her nonexistent breakfast. Fumiko ran a finger over Gaara's cheek, but he didn't wake up. Sleeping peacefully- for the first time…

His skin was smooth, no longer cloaked in in sand-armor, because when you were dead, you didn't have any chakra left to hold such a jutsu together. This was what really drove it home; that he couldn't control his sand.

Gaara couldn't control his sand.

Gaara couldn't do anything.

Gaara was dead.

Fumiko's heart tore itself to pieces again like rabid dogs ripping apart a chunk of meat.

Gone, gone, gone, Gaara was gone!

"-gone, Gaara, don't leave me, don't leave me, please! Gaara, please, no! I need you, please, Gaara please wake up! Gaara, please, please, don't die, I'm begging you, don't… Gaara…"

...

~ But she loved him still, which was why he needed her so badly. ~

...

Naruto's jaw clenched. He wanted to go to her, to see if he could comfort her. The garbled screaming and sobbing was blood-chilling, and honestly, Naruto would rather have admitted to the whole of Konoha that he was a loser than watch Fumiko cry.

He wanted to, but he couldn't bring himself to try. The truth of it was that this was his fault- Naruto had been too late. He thought of the pain he'd felt when he found them, and decided it was balm compared to what Fumiko was experiencing now.

He had thought he'd failed Gaara when he found Deidara sitting on his body like Gaara didn't mean anything to anyone. He'd thought that as Gaara's friend, he had failed. But, now, he remembered.

"Uzumaki Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Please, bring him back."

"Promise you will."

She'd been gripping his wrist so tightly. The only reason Fumiko hadn't gone with them was that Sakura had convinced her to stay, and Kankuro was injured. She had conceded and put her complete trust in him, and Naruto had failed her. He had failed both of them.

No, Naruto wasn't going to approach her. He was too afraid of what her reaction might be, and truthfully, he was too ashamed to show his face to the distraught girl. Instead of watching her, Naruto turned his eyes to the others.

Lee was the most obviously upset. His lips were pursed and his eyes shifted, seemingly unable to look at Fumiko for very long. His fists were clenched.

Naruto was surprised to see Neji's almost narrowed eyes, lips drawn back slightly, like he was thinking of snarling. Gai's expression was reserved, and Ten ten's full of sadness and sympathy.

Kakashi's face, covered like it was with his mask, was hard to read, but his eyes were shining with regret and maybe even a little guilt as well. Sakura's face was drawn, almost resigned.

She knew there was no amount of healing she could provide to help this situation.

He jumped a little when he noticed the old lady, Chiyo, staring at him. Her eyes flicked from him to Fumiko to him to Fumiko, and her expression was unreadable. All in all, they were a dismal group, and the air rang with Fumiko's choking sobs.

"Please don't die!"

"That killing intent..." somebody, Neji, breathed. "Is that... coming from her?"

Naruto shivered.

...

~ The moonlight made her tanned skin glow. She smiled in her sleep, probably dreaming. ~

...

Fumiko cried and sobbed and screamed. Most of the time- minutes? Hours?- she wasn't aware of anything but his cold skin under her fingers. The faces of the others were sympathetic and pained but Fumiko's world was shattered and smashed and ground to nothing and faces weren't important at all.

"G-gaara, p-ple-ase op-pen y-y-your e-eyes…"

Her vision was so blurred that she could barely see. But she noticed the difference in color when something gently touched her hands. Fumiko wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked up to see Granny Chiyo.

"Hush, child."

"Gran-ny Chiy-y-yo…"

"Move your hands."

"N-"

"Don't argue with me," she said, and the serious look on the old lady's face silenced her. Silently- or, as silently as one could get while they were crying and struggling to breathe- she moved aside so that her hands no longer dug into his shirt.

Fumiko shifted until she was by Gaara's head. Her arms barely had any strength left in them, but she lifted Gaara's head into her lap. Absently, almost angrily, she stroked his hair, smoothing it out of his closed eyes.

Her ears were ringing, and she barely noticed the soft, pulsing blue light wash over Gaara's pale skin. A gust of wind erupted from Granny Chiyo's hands, and the force of it blew Fumiko's hair back. Her clothes trembled and flopped.

Tears still slipped and splattered quietly onto Gaara's face. The grass around the body rippled like water. Moments passed like this. Fumiko tried to stifle her sobs, but only managed to make herself cough, literally choking on her own tears.

Through the buzz of pain and pain, Fumiko processed little. The whispers of conversation from the ninja around them were mostly just white noise to her. One sentence, though, after too many minutes of the high pitched whining in her ears, stood out.

Sakura said, "It'll be alright. She's bringing him back."

Fumiko gasped and looked up with wide, red eyes at Sakura. Her face was solemn and bleak. Then Fumiko's eyes whipped to Granny Chiyo, whose face was strained and sweating. Fumiko's trembling started again ten times worse than before; adrenaline and hope and fear shot through her veins.

Bring Gaara back to life?

Uzumaki Naruto shivered. "She's bringing him back?" he repeated numbly. "What are you talking about? I mean, how is that even possible?"

Fumiko stared at Chiyo, at the blue light, mouth open slightly in a perfect O.

She remembered all the times Chiyo had degraded her. Been rude to her. Refused her. All the times she had scorned the village, called it doomed; scorned other villages, called them doomed. Fumiko remembered all of her negativity, her certainess of hell. Maybe that was why Chiyo had hated her. Because where Chiyo had been full of bitterness Fumiko had held only hope.

What had Uzumaki Naruto done, in his tears? What had they shifted in her? Was it their sadness? Their agony? Their shift from happy to devastated? Was it Uzumaki Naruto's devotion alone? She believed in them now. In Gaara. In everything.

To give her own life...

The light faltered.

Fumiko bit her lip so hard she tasted blood in her mouth. She watched, horrified, almost mesmerized as the light began to die. Granny Chiyo's face creased even more in concentration, but it didn't matter. She didn't have enough chakra to pull of that kind of jutsu.

Fumiko knew the rumors about bringing puppets back to life, and about how close they were when Granny Chiyo shut it all down. She knew what would happen if Chiyo were to complete this technique. But right now, Fumiko was bitter, Gaara was dead, and she was in too much pain with too much hope to find it in her heart to tell her to stop.

"Damn it," Chiyo whispered. "Not enough chakra..."

But it didn't matter. Fumiko started to cry again when the light dimmed even more, almost gone, because Gaara was going to stay dead.

Two more hands appeared in Fumiko's vision: rough and calloused. They were Uzumaki Naruto's hands.

Granny Chiyo started and looked up. Fumiko just stared back down at Gaara's face, gently brushing her thumb over one of his dark black eyelids. Black as the mask of the Shukaku, a birthright he had never wanted.

"Use my chakra. As much as you need!""

Fumiko's breath caught. Use Uzumaki Naruto's chakra? Could she even do that? And if they could, did Uzumaki Naruto know he was helping to kill Granny Chiyo?

"That'll work, won't it, Granny?" Uzumaki Naruto's voice itself was an exclamation point, all nervous energy. "Please?"

There was a dead silence. The grass still waved, but the air seemed still. A tear that wasn't his slid down Gaara's nose and stopped on his cheek. Fumiko touched his face. He was so cold. Not cool- cold, like a corpse. Oh Kami. A corpse.

"Place your hands on top of mine." Chiyo said finally.

Fumiko's heart soared again. She was starting to feel sick from the constant switching from fear to despair to hope to despair to hope, and she prayed that this was the last time her heart would rise or fall.

Please, she thought. Stay up.

Uzumaki Naruto placed his hands over Granny Chiyo's, and the blue increased drastically. The wind grew stronger. Uzumaki Naruto winced, probably from the large amount of chakra being drained. Wind blasted anew, pushing her hair straight back, curling like brown flames.

Shaking, reaching one small hand out- In her blurred vision it was almost all she saw, her right hand, tan and thin, reaching out; she reached it out, slowly, slowly, and touched her just one finger to the back of Uzumaki Naruto's hand.

Instantly she felt pain deep in her coils, through her arm as whatever jutsu this was sucked chakra straight out of her skin, not from her faulty system that didn't work. What used to curl off her skin flew across it, to that one concentrated spot on her finger, then two fingers, then three as she strained over Gaara's head to reach, seeping into Uzumaki Naruto into Chiyo.

Into Gaara.

Chiyo spoke words, some of which she caught, and some of which she didn't. But this pain was like she was being burned from the inside out, and she was exhausted, and her ribs protested, and so did her arms, and the rest of her just wanted to see Gaara's eyes again, to tell him one more time at least that she loved him.

Footsteps rang all around them, and Fumiko didn't even have to look up to recognize Mai and Kankuro's chakras. The mass of people surrounded them, and Fumiko just shivered, chakra pulling straight from the deepest parts of her life, and rubbed Gaara's temple with her other thumb gently.

Whispers and cries of alarm shot the silence, and Fumiko could hear a few snips of conversation. They were worried about Gaara, worried about their kazekage. Fumiko smiled through her tears.

"Do you hear, Gaara?" she whispered. "They need their kazekage. They need you."

Fumiko could hear her heartbeat. It wasn't the steady thump, thump it usually was, it was more like squish, squish.

Gaara, I need you.

...

~ If someone ever broke her, it would be like breaking the world in half. What use was there in life if not for her smile? As horribly cheesy and stupid that it sounded, it was true. Her simplicity and way of life gave him hope. ~

...

Who is that?

There was feeling again. He couldn't explain not being there before. It wasn't like dreamless sleep, no... it just wasn't. That's all it was. Wasn't.

Who's calling me?

There was this tug. This pull. A familiar pull, like being led by the hand.

His hand. There it was, again.

My hand.

That's all.

There was something in the distance.

Two figures again. Much smaller than before. One hunched, wretched form with a gourd on his back. The other, still smiling, one hand on the shoulder of the other, kneeling. Silent screaming, he knew he was crying.

I know you, he thought about the girl. Me. Who am I?

I...

... I am...

... with her...

...

~ He just would have to always be there for her. Always. As a shield and a guard. To make people understand far and wide that to touch her was to die. ~

...

Gaara sucked in a breath suddenly, and, gasping, Fumiko pulled her hand away like she'd been shocked, feeling suddenly faint, fingers fluttering to grip the sides of his face almost tightly. When he choked on his first breath, Granny Chiyo slumped over. The blue light faded completely and all at once, Uzumaki Naruto as well was jerking back. Quick as any jonin, Sakura darted to catch her body.

Gaara's face muscles twitched like he was trying to remember how to open his eyes. Fumiko cried hysterically when he finally did open them, and he stared up at her. But unlike her previous sobbing, these tears were not tears of despair, or hope, but of utter relief.

They trickled down her cheeks to splash onto his, and his eyes blinked and narrowed as he tried to understand what was going on.

"Fumiko..?" he asked dazedly, and she nodded with a vicious speed.

"Yes, yes-!"

She kissed him upside-down, kissed him hard, kissed him for all of the times they might never have kissed again, her hair sliding all over the place, and tasted her own tears. But he was warm, sweet sugar, Gaara was alive!

She pulled away, laughing like she was crazy.

"Fumiko… why are you… crying? What..."

"You were dead," she said with a teary grin. "You were dead, Gaara."

Fumiko shifted her hands from his face, and Uzumaki Naruto helped her to help him sit up. When he did, Uzumaki Naruto slapped a welcoming hand on his shoulder. Gaara stared, and Fumiko had forgotten they had an audience.

Gaara's wide eyes made Fumiko want to laugh again- he was shocked.

There were people everywhere- ninja, all of them almost save for two or three- Puppeteers, tessenjutsu users, Taijutsu or genjutsu or ninjutsu speciaists alike, genin, chuunin, jonin (tokubetsu and no.) So many different people. Men. Woman. Barely still children. All of them staring, smiling, worried, hands clasped behind backs and against chests and twirling around things.

"What... is this...?" Gaara murmured, surprised.

""They all came running to help ya," Uzumaki Naruto said in his loud, rough, cheerful voice. His tears had long since dried. Fumiko realized that Sakura had moved Granny Chiyo's body. "You've had everyone worried half to death!"

"Lord Gaara!" Someone, Matsuri, yelled breathlessly, running forward, jerking to a sluggish stop. "Sir! Are you alright?"

Gaara nodded, slowly, like he couldn't believe this was happening. Fumiko almost couldn't, either- the sheer amount of people. When had this happened? When had everyone started to see Gaara for who he really was?

When had they all started to love him as much as she did?

Matsuri paused, and then a grin slowly started to spread across her face- wide, openmouthed, cheeks pushing her eyes shut. And then they all began to cheer, throwing their hands up into the air. Some cried, some danced happily. A lot of people laughed and yelled amongst themselves.

"You sure had us worried there," Uzumaki Naruto said with a smirk-ish grin.

Kankuro approached, hands in his pockets, smiling. It was a happy smile, relieved, with none of the residual squirming that remained in her stomach. Mai walked next to him. Fumiko was still kneeling on the grass beside Gaara, not quite sure what to do, or how to feel.

"No kidding. You caused us a whole ton of grief there, little brother."

Little brother.

"Ugh, will you two quit putting on airs already?" Temari demanded. She sat kneeled next to Gaara, just half a foot away from her. "Gaara's the Kazekage, remember? Ech- show a little respect. You nitwits."

Kankuro sniffed at her. Uzumaki Naruto didn't look all that pleased, either.

"Big bro!" Mai grinned and prodded Gaara's thigh with her foot. "Did you just die?"

"Gaara!" Temari shoved Uzumaki Naruto aside, nearly knocking Fumiko over as well to get a closer look at Gaara's face. "Talk to me- how do you feel?"

Instead of answering, Gaara tried to sit up, hand pushing against his knee. His face scrunched up in pain and he almost fell to the side, but Fumiko grabbed his shoulder. How long had he been dead? Since she realized it earlier in his office?

... Oh Kami. He still had rigor mortis.

"Careful!" Temari yelped. Then her voice softened. "You shouldn't get up too quickly. Your body hasn't completely recovered from the rigor mortis yet."

He eased back into Fumiko's arms, but he still looked frustrated.

It felt good to hold him. His cold warmth. His solidity. The way his shoulders were wider than hers, so that it was harder to keep him propped up. His red hair against her face. She was hugging him more than holding him up.

There was a commotion again as Matsuri and Sari started up again.

"If anything ever happens again, I'll protect him, with all my heart!"

"No, I will!"

"Get in line!"

"Lord Gaara!" they chorused and darted towards them, shoving Uzumaki Naruto out of the way. Temari sood, scoffing, in front of Gaara, arms out. Mai turned to face them as well, hands on her hips. Not that Gaara would have minded- he might have been flustered under ordinary conditions, but right now his face was Kami all of these people... are they here for me?

"Naruto, thank you."

Fumiko could suddenly hear him, as the noise died down.

"Hey, don't look at me!" Uzumaki Naruto laughed. "It's granny over there you should be thanking. She saved Gaara with some kind of amazing medical ninjutsu."

Oh, Naruto.

"She tired herself out and fell asleep," Uzumaki Naruto carried on, oblivious to the saddening looks of his peers. "But I'm sure she'll be fine when we get her back to the village."

"No, she won't." Kankuro said flatly.

Gaara tensed and seemed to relax all at once, muscles falling apart as he sat ramrod-straight. She could feel the shocked twitch under his skin.

"Huh?" Uzumaki Naruto blinked.

There was a moment of silence before Kankuro spoke again. When he did he looked away from all of them, to a spot of unoccupied grass.

"Granny Chiyo used that jutsu," Kankuro said gravely.

"What are you talking about?" Uzumaki Naruto demanded. "Why won't she?"

It made sense that he didn't understand... he was one of the few not from Suna. Mai, Temari, Gaara, herself, every one of the Suna citizens in the crowd went quiet if they hadn't already been, sharing looks with eachother. That jutsu was well known. Everyone who was a ninja or friend of a ninja knew it, because it had been all the frenzy when it was first being developed- a way to bring back the dead?

But then it had been shut down for obvious reasons. A life for a life was ineffective and inefficient. It was against Suna's policies to weaken yourself to help another.

So much for that.

"She wasn't using medical ninjutsu," Kankuro corrected him softly. "It was a reanimation ninjutsu."

Gaara's head turned slowly, lips parting, to stare at them.

What a shock it had to be for him. Barely expecting to be loved by anyone had turned into supporters had turned into someone gave their life for you. Gaara had yet to say a single word since asking after her appearance.

"Granny Chiyo is... dead."

"What- what are you saying- how can she be dead?!"

"It's a ninjutsu that allows you to bring someone back from the dead," Kankuro said. The end of his sentance was pointy. "... In exchange for your own life."

Uzumaki Naruto flinched.

"Years ago in the Puppet Master Corps, a secret jutsu was developed to breathe life into actual puppets. Chiyo-baa-sama led that project... they did come up with a method for it. However... midway they concluded that there was too much risk involved. It was classified as forbidden jutsu before human testing could be done, and sealed away."

In the silence that followed, Fumiko finally noticed the dark grey hue to the light. It was getting darker out- the sun was past setting, gone completely. But it wasn't dark entirely. There must have been a birthing sunrise somehwere. She couldn't see it; her back was to whatever first rays of light existed. Had she been out here all day, flying? All night, mourning the loss of her best friend's life, only to have him restored to her?

Chiyo...

Chiyo-baa-sama...

"Look at her," Ebisu said quietly from somewhere nearby. Turning her head, Fumiko saw that he whad walked up behind Sakura, who still held Chiyo's body. "I half expect her to burst out laughing. Her face is so... peaceful."

A tear slipped down Sakura's face, but it was gone from her voice. Just like a shinobi. "Yes... yes."

Fumiko sat on Gaara's left, which meant that he was looking away from her as he stared at Chiyo, but Fumiko could imagine his expression- disbelief, and gratitude, but also, fear- because how were you supposed to live up to that kind of legacy? Every day, Fumiko thought, Just don't change.

"Naruto," Temari said. "There is something different about you. It's true- you do have the power to change people. ... Lady Chiyo always used to say that she didn't care about the future of Sunagakure. She wasn't the kind of person... who would do something like this for Gaara."

Gaara looked first at the ground, then closed his eyes. He smelled like clay.

The sky was brightening now.

"Lady Chiyo entrusted the future to you and Gaara," Kakashi said. "It was a death... befitting a shinobi."

"Yeah," Uzumaki Naruto said, his voice dying. "Just like the third."

"That's true," Kakashi said softly. Fumiko had no idea what they were talking about- the Third Hokage? She probably, somewhere in the back of her big brain, knew how he had died, but right now, it was- skin on her skin, hair against her face, breath rising and falling against her chest. Nothing else mattered, except, perhaps, for fear.

"Hmph," Uzumaki Naruto said, voice even quieter. "I get it now. I understand what Granny wished for."

Gaara tried to stand again.

"Lord Gaara!" Matsuri tried to help him, taking his elbows. "Are you alright-?"

"I'm fine," he said, shrugging his elbow away. Fumiko tried to help him stand but the position was too awkward for her to be much use other then to help him sit up. Slowly and jerkily, grunting with pain and exertion, he managed to stand almost all the way- Fumiko was left looking up at him, hands feebly rising in the air- he almost fell about halfway, but Uzumaki Naruto caught his arm.

Fumiko forced herself to her feet as well as Gaara straightened.

They all three faced Sakura and Chiyo-baa-sama, who did indeed look peaceful, like she was resting. Just like Gaara had. Death was such a lie.

"Everyone," Gaara said quietly, so soft that it broke Fumiko's heart, but ringing with a baritone that caught everyone's attention. "Pray for Lady Chiyo. Bid her farewell."

Fumiko closed her eyes.

What do I say to you? she thought.

Thank you... for being there? For changing? For saving Gaara? For heading Puppet Corps project? For seeing him and loving him, just like he wanted? For seeing our pain and trying to reverse it?

Everything.

Thank you for everything, Chiyo-baa-sama. Lady Chiyo.

I can't thank you enough.

Goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sadness though
> 
> Fumiko totally thanks her like every day for the rest of their lives and refers to no one else by their honorifics


	6. Coming Home

...

~ "No." ~

...

Walking all the way back to Sunagakure was grueling in its own right, and the going was slow and painful, but it seemed almost like a parade, with the happy people around him.

Gaara was supported on either side by Naruto and Kankuro. Fumiko had tried, but she wasn't tall enough and she wasn't strong enough to support his entire almost dead weight. So she fell behind, level with Kankuro, arms wrapped around herself.

He could barely see her, although he kept craning his neck to try. She wasn't wearing the brilliant smile he'd seen when he first came back from the dead, nor was she laughing or crying, but her eyes were glued to the sand at her feet, expression almost blank.

It bothered him. A few things bothered him, actually, like the sheer amount of people who had come against orders to help him, the fact that he had died in the first place, the disturbing feeling of coming from nothing to tears on his face.

But the sudden blankness bothered him. Immediately after paying respects to Chiyo, Fumiko had withdrawn into herself like a clam, merely watching and not speaking.

The sand was hot. The air was hot. His skin felt supersensitive, and he was grappling with a subtle but overwhelming sense of emptiness. That was another thing that nagged him, although he wasn't quite sure what it was exactly…

"- Shukaku out of you, but then we ripped them a new one! I totally beat the crap outta the guy, he blew himself or a clone or something up to get away, but then Kakashi-sensei used his sharingan to-"

Shukaku out of you.

"What, Naruto?"

...

~ The advisor sighed. "I'm only saying-" ~

...

There were people lined up along the walls. Fumiko registered the sound of their cheering before she even picked them out from the sandstone, rocky wall pathways. How many people were out there? Hundreds at least. Not the entire population but are they all here for us?

Men, women, children, ninja and civilians alike. It was like a larger version of the group that had come searching for Gaara before. And they were here for Gaara, hopeful smiles breaking into loud screams of happiness, crying out his name and his title and bursting with words and words and words.

"That's what I call a warm welcome," Kankuro said beside her with a grin.

Gaara's face was blanked out with surprise. It almost made her want to laugh, but it also made her want to cry, and then all she managed to do was shake her head a little. This was important. This was forever. If it would last forever, though, was very, very unknown. But she could feel pride bubbling deep in her chest, warm and flowing.

"Uh-huh," Uzumaki Naruto said, grinning.

"Look at how many people there are," Lee exclaimed.

"Just what you would expect for the Kazekage," neji said. He didn't know quite how wrong he was, or quite how momentus the crowds and crowds of people and their cheering really was. Or maybe he did, and he was just being Neji-cool.

"I'll say," Tenten breathed.

The sun was rising behind them, which made it easier to see them people when they finally rushed forward, catching up with their stretching shadows. They swarmed, people mixing with people until it was just the four of them left inside: Uzumaki Naruto, Gaara, Kankuro, herself.

Baki broke free from the crowd. He didn't smile, but stood ramrod-straight, like a shinobi.

"I am glad you're safe," he said quietly.

Gaara dipped his head in an acknowledging nod. "Thanks to these people."

Baki nodded back. Now he did smile. "Uzumaki Naruto, I thank you."

"Huh?" Uzumaki Naruto blinked. "But- But I wasn't the one who-I mean... I hardly did anything at all, really."

Was there maybe a little bit of guilt in that? Uzumaki Naruto didn't get bashful. Fumiko supposed it didn't really matter, but still glanced over at him quickly. He still held Gaara up, looking away like he would deny everything.

"Lord Kazekage," Baki said without pushing it further. "Your people are waiting to welcome you home."

...

~ "I don't plan to die any time in the near future," Gaara said, cutting the man off with an only mildly irritated tone. ~

...

The next day, Fumiko had to dig through her closet to find the black dress at the back of her closet. Just today, she would mourn. But still, it felt strange, the velvety fabric between her fingers. She even had a black slipper to go with it. It had been a while since she went funeral clothes shopping, so it was too short, and she had never bought pants for it.

But that was okay. She borrowed a pair of leather pants from Mai. The left leg hung over her prosthetic all the way to where her ankle would've been, and it bulged around the wood part like a dangerous tumor, but that was okay too.

...

~ "People do not usually plan to die, Kazekage-sama," he said dryly. ~

...

There was an area along the wall put away as a graveyard. A depressing number of headstones had built up since the destruction of the catacombs. That seemed like years and years ago, back when the most important thing in the world was making sure Gaara didn't get too stressed out and running out of paint in the storerooms of her studio.

Ebisu was already at the freshly made gravestone. Fumiko wondered, briefly, how they were made- did someone carve them by hand, or maybe someone had a mastery of Doton jutsu that allowed them to carve it out with chakra? It had been made in a day. They were artfully made, like the hourglass of Sunagakure's symbol, sketched with the name, birthday, and death date of the person.

She didn't want a death date on her gravestone. Fumiko wanted to live forever, even if it was only symbolically.

Gaara wore black mourning clothes as well. He looked significantly smaller in them, less dangerous, less important. But at the same time it made him seem more human- tired, and sad, and grateful. His red hair stood out like a shock against the dark colors. Kankuro, Mai, and Temari as well all wore shades of black, without weapons. Fumiko herself carried only her medical pack, the strap of which she gripped.

"Is that..." Sakura, of course, wouldn't know who was buried here; although maybe she could have seen Chiyo's name from afar with her ninja trained eyes if she'd wanted to, Fumiko didn't know.

Gaara ducked his head. "Chiyo's final resting place."

They all stepped closer, feet scuffing against the ground. There had already been a funeral with tons more people in attendance, but everything had been wild since they got back- no one had even thought of sleeping with all the chaos.

Now, however, they stopped along the way to the Sunagakure gate. Everyone aside from Lee and Gai-sensei- for reasons unknown to her- were leaving that day. But they were all- Lee and Gai included- here now, paying their respects, waiting to say goodbye at the gates.

Finally, Ebisu spoke, breaking the heavy silence with a nostalgic tone. "She didn't want a headstone on her grave," he said almost wistfully, and then paused, putting a hand on the stone and running his fingers across the smooth top. "But despite her wishes, I thought it was better to have one... I felt sure that people would want a place to come to remember her."

"Everyone," Kakashi said. "Say your farewells."

They all ducked their heads. Fumiko did as well, ratty hair curtaining across her face, although her mind was blank, save for Chiyo-baa-sama.

The moment was over too early, and everyone began to raise their heads. Fumiko did not, clenching her fists against her sides. Water squeezed past her closed eyelids, and although they didn't spill they pooled in the corners of her eyes.

"It'll be alright. She's bringing him back."

She remembered all the times Chiyo had degraded her. Been rude to her. Refused her. All the times she had scorned the village, called it doomed; scorned other villages, called them doomed. Fumiko remembered all of her negativity, her certainess of hell. Maybe that was why Chiyo had hated her. Because where Chiyo had been full of bitterness Fumiko had held only hope.

"Chiyo-baa-sama..."

"Everything I've done in my life so far has been wrong. But perhaps now, in my last hour, I can finally do something right."

"Chiyo-baa-sama!"

Fumiko started to run forward before realizing she was only a few feet away from the stone and slowed, stopping, and now the tears spilled out over her cheeks again. Her voice was still raggedy. She could feel Gaara's and the others' surprise as she dropped to her knees in front of the tombstone, and then her hands hit the ground, and then her elbows bent.

Her forehead touched the sand.

Maybe she herself was undecided and tormented and trying to be happy and sad at the same time, and maybe they were all wearing black, and maybe the entire world was about to spiral into hell, but Chiyo had given her life for someone she had hated, someone not important to her, someone important to those around her, and didn't she deserve something for that?

"Thank you," she whispered. "... Chiyo-baa-sama."

...

~ "Joseki-san, I'm not discussing this any further." Gaara said. His hands moved furiously, penning out his name on three different legislatures before he even finished the sentence. If he stopped, even for a second, to truly pay attention to the conversation... ~

...

Almost immediately after bidding the Konoha ninja farewell, Gaara collapsed.

They hadn't gotten three steps away from the gates of Sunagakure before it happened; Gaara's knees buckling, his body flopping to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut, all loose joints and pooling clothes.

She had known his unnatural body heat was a bad sign. Okay, yes, it wasn't a fever, it was just the average heat of an average person, for now, at least, but that had been strange in its own right. Fumiko had thought maybe, maybe it had something to do with the Shukaku being taken out- like, maybe the Shukaku had been making him colder somehow, and now his natural bodily functions were regulating.

But no. He was breathing funny now, too, shallow and rushed. His face held no flush yet, but considering that he'd just passed out-

She thought all of this before she realized she was saying his name, kneeling down beside him. She touched his face, lips drawing down at the ends. Still warm.

Kankuro, Mai, and Temari had long since cried out in alarm, and now they were giving her and each other sharp commands, reaching to pick him up in pieces- his shoulder, his arm, his waist. Fumiko let them, because she could barely stand, let alone support him again.

But, Kami, she wanted to. She felt like absolute crap but she wanted to help him, save him, wanted to pick him up from the rubble and run, get out of the heat, the sand, bring him home-

No, no, no, he's fine, he's safe, he's-

Gaara groaned, snapping her out of her freeze. She realized her fingers were clawing red slashes into her throat as the smell of clay faded from her nose, although the cloying heat didn't fade, which was strange, was she still, was she- desert. She was in a desert. Of course she was hot. Stupid.

Stupid? When was the last time she had used the word stupid to describe anything? Had she ever?

Kami, what was wrong with her?

Redness was starting to swirl into Gaara's face, which was a sign of fever. Fever, the sudden collapse, it didn't make any sense in her suddenly sluggish brain, the world around her coming through like snapshots in a picture booth- sick? Sick? Those were signs of sickness, her medic side said, in Gaara, said the rest of her.

Flash: "Temari, he's slipping, grab his other elbow!"

"Right, right, I know!"

Flash: Gaara was mumbling her name incoherently, she could barely make out the fragmented words, word, over and over, sometimes clear and sometimes not, but what broke through was Fumiko, sorry, Fumiko, sorry, like a broken track.

Flash: "Alright, let's go!"

Faceless people with featureless clothes and soundless, vibrating voices.

Flash: "Wait- wait, Baka-Kankuro! Fumiko's-"

I don't feel so good.

Flash: Spinning air, skidding buildings and suddenly she was sideways? What?

Flash: Sand. The texture against her face and tickling the inside of her nose. The color of it. Sand, she thought dazedly, safe, dangerous, it protects me, I'll die out here-

...

~ Then he would start to blush and that was not at all acceptable. ~

...

Fumiko woke up suddenly, body jerking like she had just came out from a nightmare. She always woke up suddenly, but this was different- her eyes hadn't even opened yet, which was strange. And it still felt like she'd only slept for a millisecond.

She pried them open, squinting at the sudden light, but turning her head every which way to try and make sense of this particular waking-up, considering that she didn't remember falling asleep. At first it was all blurry light and malformed shadows, but then her vision cleared.

She was in the hospital again. It was strange how much she'd woken up in a hospital in her life. It smelled like antiseptic, bleach, and air freshener. A very peculiar, very familiar scent that was comforting in its own right.

There were three different IVs hooked to her arms, pumping clear and cloudy liquids into her veins. She felt less hungry, and realized that they were artificially feeding her, which was fine, since she didn't want to eat food. The idea made her feel even sicker.

There were a couple more machines about her, and a few more things attached to her, like a blood-pressure cuff and heart monitor that beeped in slow, heady rhythms. Her nightgown was starchy and itchy, and she knew her prosthetic wasn't on because she couldn't feel the chakra tug. The bandages about her arms and neck were fresh.

Her muscles seemed to fizzle. Fumiko's tongue felt like glue pasted to the top of her mouth, and her skin was starting to peel from too much exposure to the sun over the last few days. She was certain that if she looked, the throbbing skin of her stump would be black and purple and green with bruises. She was so used to bruises now that she didn't quite remember what it felt like not to throb like a pulse all over.

Fortunately, her ribs didn't seem to twang as much as it had before, and her sprained ankle barely twinged. Unfortunately, she still felt sick.

With guilt, yes, and with that horrible swirling, churning sensation in her stomach. But also with a strange dizziness only amplified by the heat and the liquid feeling draining between her eyes, and the still twisting feeling of her physical stomach, despite the fluids trickling into her body. And sugar, she felt so tired.

"Fumiko? Fumiko!"

"M-m-mai?" Fumiko's voice, apparently, was still hoarse and ragged, so she couldn't have been asleep for that long… "Wh-what-"

"You had some kinda panic attack," her sister said. Fumiko tracked her voice until her eyes slid messily across her form- black hair, tan skin, red shirt, earring, teeth, small, compact muscles- and then she thought, wait.

Panic attack?

"Panic attack?" she echoed.

"Yeah," Mai aid, and shrugged. "After Gaara flaked, you just kinda, I don't know, froze up. Then you started crying. Then, well, you passed out. I got you here, Temari and Kankuro brought back-"

"Gaar-ra," Fumiko gasped, because she remembered fainting now- although, she hadn't realized she'd been crying. "G-Gaara, whe-where-"

"In the other room." Mai's voice was husky with softness. She pointed with her thumb. "But no getting up, okay? I tried making them bring him in here or you in there, but he's just too sick. They don't want you to catch it in the state you're in."

Mai cut off her protest almost instantaneously.

"Fumiko, I know." she said. "But you just can't this time."

You can't this time.

This time.

This time?

Kami, now she wanted to pass out again, to kill it, her stomach, that churning, that guilt, that fear, oh sugar, the fear was killing her again, it was worse than before. This time? What about all the other times? She could see it, now, all the times she could have saved him but didn't, all the ways, all the opportunities she hadn't taken, never, never-

"Hey, chill out." Mai said uncertainly as Fumiko's mouth twisted like she was having a seizure. "Fumiko, hey, you've done enough. Rest now."

There was something in that, in what she said, that bothered her. You've done enough made it even worse, yes, something was really wrong with her, it was like a virus, but- Mai.

"Why a-are you-"

Fumiko was abruptly cut off as the door opened with a soft snick. "Fumiko?"

"L-lee?"

"Ah! You are finally awake!" he cried, rushing the rest of the way inside and letting the door slam behind him. Mai grumbled to herself, raking her fingers through her bangs with an exasperated sigh. They instantly sprung back into place across her forehead, but she didn't seem to care.

"Lee, for the last time-"

"Lee," Fumiko said, and was suddenly intensely grateful for his noise and brightness. Her body felt weak, but she managed to raise her hand a little. "L-lee."

Mai narrowed her eyes a little, then shrugged. "Dude's been flying in and out of here like a seagull, shrieking his damn head off every time."

"H-how long have I b-been…"

"Two days. But you'll be in another week or so. When, exactly, did you twist up your ankle and break your ribs?"

"I f-fell down the s-stairs," Fumiko muttered. At Mai's deadpan stare, she added, "O-oh, and f-fought with Sa-sasori."

Stop. Freaking. Out, she ordered herself.

"Oh, right," Mai said, eyes flashing. "By the way, that was really, really-"

"Youthful!" Lee cut in. "Fighting to save your beloved against all odds, knowing you might very well fail! Battling to the very bitter end, and then deceiving two powerful opponents with a Genjutsu like no other! Oh, the passion of Youth runs strongly in you, Fumiko-!"

"I," Mai interrupted with a twitching smirk, "was going to say stupid."

"Stupid?" Lee looked bewildered. "How is that stupid?"

"She's a pacifist civilian with next to no real combat training who tried to go up against two S-ranked ninja- twice, even though they weren't there the second time- one of whom was perfectly capable of taking out Gaara, and the other entire units of Black Ops." Mai said dryly. "No offense to you or anything, Fumiko, but really, I'm amazed you're alive. Work on that Genjutsu 'til your chakra starts to bleed, you got that?"

Fumiko nodded.

"Good. Anyway, me and Lee've been talking."

"T-talking?" Fumiko frowned slightly. "About w-what? And where's ev-veryone e-else?"

"With Gaara or somebody, I dunno. Shut up and listen. We want to teach you how to fight."

"I kn-know how to f-fight."

"No. Not self-defense. Not protect-myself-until-Gaara-or-somebody-comes-to-save-me. I mean fight. Like a shinobi."

"Wh-what?"

"Lee's going to teach you taijutsu," she said. "And not the little pussy things you do because you think it's fun to tag along with him, but really, really train."

"I will come over to Suna myself every now and again," Lee said. "but aside from that, Mai will help you to follow one of my training regimes."

"Yeah. And aside from that," Mai continued," You and me or Temari or someone are gonna work on your jutsu. You said you were Suiton, right? I dunno much about water style, but I do know how to separate by element."

"M-my-"

"If you're gonna run out and play the hero," Mai said, "Then you need superpowers. A kunai and a few lucky breaks just isn't gonna cut it."

"Mai… I d-don't know-"

"Kankuro told me that these guys knew about you. Right?"

"Y-yeah, but-"

"Look, Fumiko, I know this is weird for you. You're a little messed up right now, and you just had the earthquake of your freaking life. But if those guys know about you, then so does everyone else. Me, Gaara, a lot of people in this village would rather die than let you get hurt, but look how that turned out."

Fumiko wasn't quite sure what to say.

Learning jutsu used to be so far away. A dream that hadn't even formed. It had always been so final- you'll never learn it. But then came Genjutsu, and later, medical ninjutsu- although her medical ninjutsu and her Genjutsu were radically different than ordinary.

Could she?

With her developing Darning Stitch Chakra technique, it was possible.

Did she dare?

Free to learn new things. Isn't that what being human is?

...

~ "Lord Kazekage," Joseki huffed. He was standing up, a contrast to Gaara's seated position. Gaara thought fleetingly to be polite and ask to get him a chair, but then again, the advisor had barged into his office while he was talking to discuss a matter that he didn't want to talk about at all... ~

...

She'd said she would think about it and then said nothing else on the matter until finally Mai, and then Lee, left.

She had to see Gaara.

But she had a heart monitor on.

But she had to make sure he was okay.

But there were fluids draining into her arms.

She had to.

But she wasn't allowed.

What?

Since when had that ever mattered? Fumiko wanted to laugh at the thought, but something choked it off. There was still a desperation to her actions that pushed her forward, a drive she had had since Gaara's defeat almost two full weeks ago- first, following Gaara, then, caring for Kankuro, running the village, and when she could stay still no longer, fly off into the desert to search for him.

I left Sasori there.

It was a sudden strange thought. She had left Sasori among the rocks, partially in pieces. At least she had taken the swords out. If she had been able, she would have, should have taken him with her. Nobody deserved that.

She sat up, careful for the moment at least not to pull out the taped in IV needles. There was one in her right wrist, another in her right elbow, and a third in her left elbow.

Her prosthetic was gone. It wasn't even in the room. Mai's doing, probably. But her IVs were on rollers. She would only have a few moments every time she did this, before the doctors started to realize that she wasn't actually dying every time it flatlined.

She'd played this game before.

Fumiko tapped off two of the IVs, the least important fluids of them, then carefully peeled off the tape and pulled out the needles out. Tiny bubbles of blood poked out, but she just licked them off and kept going. The only needle left was the one taped to her right wrist.

There was water by her bed; she downed the entire jug like a drain, sucking and gasping. When she finished, there was a bib of water down the front of her nightgown and she was coughing, but the coldness felt good and her stomach sloshed instead of twisted.

She pulled the velcro of the blood pressure cuff apart and dropped it next to her on the bed. The monitor squealed in protest, announcing her death to the entire hospital. She hated that sound- flatlining.

She braced herself, wrapping her fingers around the pole, then heaved herself out of the bed. Fumiko almost tripped, but hopped about until she finally found her balance, the harsh squeaking of the wheels banging off the walls.

Fumiko took a breath, then another, fingers clenched so tightly to the cold metal that her knuckles turned white. She scooted forward, one careful hop after another, with the pole on her left side acting like a crutch. She made it out the door carefully. She only had another minute at best before the doctors and nurses came running to resuscitate her. Although, maybe by now they would know her tricks well enough to take their time.

His door was just to the right of hers.

She realized as she stood in front of it that maybe Mai and Lee had gone in there. If Mai or Temari were in there…

It opened right before she managed to grab the knob.

Kankuro greeted her with a tired smile.

"We heard you dying next door," he said. "Don't worry. I told the doctors to ignore it if you flatlined."

...

~ "I am only suggesting that you prepare for the future." ~

...

Gaara wasn't dying, but he definitely wasn't just taking a nap, either.

He hadn't woken up for more than a few minutes at a time since he'd initially passed out. He had a constant, unbroken fever, shivering and sweating no matter how many blankets they did or didn't pile on him. He muttered a lot in his sleep, about many things: sometimes her, but also about his siblings, and Chiyo, and the Akatsuki and Naruto and some kind of light.

Until Fumiko woke up, they hadn't been able to give him anything that wasn't by mouth. She was the only one that his sand would allow to give shots and plug in IVs. He wasn't out of chakra. He didn't have a lot of chakra, but enough of it had generated to subconsciously protect him.

So nobody forced her to leave, although they did try to make her eat, which she still couldn't do. Mai gave her back her prosthetic, mumbling things under her breath that Fumiko didn't really feel like repeating.

The best she could figure was that Gaara's incredible immune system wasn't actually his- it had always been Shukaku. The sheer power of that demon's chakra and energy had burned out everything that wasn't necessary- including, she hypothesized, extra nutrients, which would explain his gawky height and weight compared to others at his skill level.

So when Shukaku was taken away? Instantly Gaara had next to no immune system. In a way, it was good he was getting so sick: his body was learning to counteract it. But that didn't mean she didn't want him to open his eyes, say her name again, something.

His sand still worked. Something about that niggled in the back of her mind. Hadn't his sand been from Shukaku? His Ultimate Defense- to keep his host from dying before he could find a way to take over? It made her think of that day, out in the desert, when the chakra-infused sand had protected her.

But why?

Shukaku hated her.

This train of thought, however, was pushed to the side in favor of cold water and blankets and fluids and painkillers for the pain plaguing his body, especially his joints, residue from his day or two of being a dead man.

Not many people were allowed in Gaara's room. Close family- Kankuro, Temari- and the doctors and nurses, which included her. It made sense, but it made a lot of people mad- Mai and her mother, to name a few, and a lot of concerned citizens.

Once, on the way to the bathroom, she'd been ambushed, bombarded with questions from reporters and ninja and civilians alike. Bewildered, Fumiko was only able to make them even more curious, and then Baki came along and advised her not to talk to the reporters again until Gaara woke up.

...

~ "By making an heir out of wedlock?" Gaara finally demanded, grabbing papers with a furious energy. "What would that accomplish aside from having me skewered by the media?" ~

...

His pulse spiked irregularly sometimes. Fumiko wondered what he was dreaming about.

...

~ Joseki huffed. "I never said out of wedlock." ~ 

...

"Hey, I got junk food!"

"Kankuro, stop getting that crap from the vending machine."

"Whatever, mom. Hey, Fumiko, got you some chocolate stuff. You want it?"

"Not really."

"Freak."

Fumiko couldn't help but snort, a quick, aborted thought of a laugh.

...

~ "Please get out of my office." ~

...

"… water…"

Fumiko smoothed his hair back. The kanji was kind of meh now- not bright and not faded. He'd been sick for a week almost. That was three weeks, Fumiko counted, since she'd last done a lot of things.

"… thunder…"

...

~ "This matter must be addressed, Kazekage-sama!" Joseki had the nerve to reach out and straighten his cactus plant. "You cannot avoid it forever." ~

...

It was another day where no one was around. Mai had disappeared again, and had been gone for three days already, Kankuro was filling in somewhere for somebody, and Temari was helping man the Kazekage office.

It was also another day where she couldn't stop feeling heat on her skin and making a million plans that could never be used now. It was overwhelming, how badly she wanted to fix her mistakes.

She wanted to be more like Gaara. Or Kankuro. Or Mai. Able to fight to the very bitter end. Kankuro saved her, and, sort of, Gaara, by getting the flip of fabric, even though he could've died. Gaara saved the entire village, even though he could've won if he didn't, at the expense of his own life.

Mai trained so hard so that if the time came she could successfully risk her life for something. It was the whole point of being a shinobi, especially in Sunagakure.

"I mean fight. Like a shinobi."

Gaara was getting better, or at least they thought he was. He responded to a few voices now- hers, Kankuro's, Mai's, when she snuck in. Not Temari's yet, which frustrated her to no end.

Fumiko was sitting beside his bedside. Gaara was laid out flat, sleeping peacefully and without nightmares, which was funny, because it was so much like before, with her watching over him to make sure he didn't drift too deep. Only now she didn't need to do that.

Her bruises were changing color again, she could see it whenever she changed her bandages. Lighter, although they were still pretty dark. She wondered what she was going to say about them when Gaara woke up and decided it didn't really matter.

"You know," she said suddenly, as the reel of his battle played in her mind again. "I didn't really think I could fall in love with you any more."

She touched her fingertips to his open palm. His fingers twitched and almost curled around hers.

"But I think I was wrong."

...

~ "I can," Gaara said. "And I will wait." ~

...

Is this how Gaara feels?

She was sick now too, albeit not as badly. Once again, doctors and friends were forced to comply, dragging in an extra bed and just making room.

...

~ "Kazekage-sama, you have been with this girl practically since you were out of the womb!" ~

...

Doctors swarmed when Gaara's heartbeat suddenly spiked- a continuous nightmare. They were versed in Gaara's old nightmares- which basically meant, over the course of his life, if he started having a nightmare in the hospital wake him up or get someone who could- quick.

But now it was just a nightmare, just a normal, bloodlust free nightmare, although it still tugged at Fumiko's heart to see him writhing like he was, face twisted with some kind of angry sadness. The sand still danced with a pluckish fury, looser than it had been once, less controlled.

The doctors couldn't get close, but now Gaara was starting to moan, and they spoke airless words that he couldn't be overly stressed when he was as sick as he was. So without really asking her opinion- it didn't matter, she liked it better anyway- they took their chances and simply moved her out of her bed and next to him.

They were both sick, so it didn't really matter. Fumiko curled into his side, wanting to cringe away from the heat of his skin but drawn to his Gaara-desert scent. She said things in a rough, weak, sticky voice muffled by sick, but it must have been recognizable enough, because it calmed him- even woke him up for a few seconds.

Well, enough to say, "Monsters," and then he fell back into sleep, but still. Awake, and his eyes had found hers.

After that they left her there and took out the extra bed to save space.

...

~ You have got to be kidding me, Gaara thought. He's insane. "Barely more than a year, in truth. Joseki-san, I may be Kazekage, but I am fifteen, remember. And in any case this isn't only a matter of political stability. Fumiko needs to be considered as well." ~

...

Her sick burned out first, and she was back on her feet within three days of catching it. And then she wove seamlessly back into the work of caring for him.

...

Joseki's tone turned poisonously sarcastic. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind." ~

...

When Gaara finally woke up, it was three weeks and six days since the beginning of this entire snowball. Almost a full month since Deidara had taken their village by storm.

Deidara had a track record of murder a mile long. Fumiko had cross-referenced at least one or two sets of bingo books from three different villages to get the most accurate information possible.

He had certainly made a reputation for himself right away- he had defected from his village after using a forbidden jutsu to give himself the ability to create those clay bombs- although they didn't list how or why it worked, and two of them weren't even sure why he'd defected all together- and had killed his entire explosion corp as a parting gift.

As far as she could tell, the explosion corp. was similar to puppet corp. in Iwagakure. Deidara was some kind of terrorist, bombing things both for money and just plain enjoyment. How blowing people up was in any way enjoyable, she didn't know.

Although, a tiny part of her mind whispered, given the chance…

Fumiko quashed it.

Now, looking at Gaara trying to sit up, thinking about murder and Deidara and Sasori, arms throbbing, the discomfort in her soul suddenly burst.

I can't do this.

...

~ His calligraphy brush stilled against paper. Gaara's thoughts turned into a continuous loop, playing through his head like a broken radio track. ~

...

Waking up, Gaara realized, was a lot like coming back to life.

His body felt squishy and uncomfortable and sick. Obviously he knew he was sick- between being conscious a few times and the insane technicolor dreams, he had put two and two together.

But the debilitating stiffness in his joints had vanished. He wasn't a walking dead person anymore.

Of course, he was still sick, which was foreign and disgusting, but his fever had broken. There was also still that strange emptiness in his head and in his core. He had no seal. He had no prison. The Shukaku had been him, like his blood, a second, heady chakra system, twining with his energy and his thoughts.

Now it was gone, and it was like someone had pulled the filaments of an intricate spiderweb out of him- a million tiny holes, an empty twisting passageway miles long, blank spaces in his mind that should have stuck to him.

"Hey, Shorty-sama," Mai's voice said from somewhere before his eyes started working again. "Jeez. Things better stop going wrong soon or they might just impeach you."

Her tone was joking, or else that might have alarmed him. As it was, he blinked until his vision cleared, then startled away from Mai's waving hand.

"Hey, Gaara," Kankuro said. "Scared us all. Again," he added.

"Oh please," Temari scoffed. "The doctors said he would be fine, and Fumiko wasn't-"

"Fumiko," Gaara said.

Mai grinned. "Kami. You know, when it comes to you two, I can't even talk about the other one without-"

"Fumiko," Gaara repeated. "Where-"

And then he saw her, seeming to shrink behind Kankuro's shoulder.

So she wasn't hurt or sick. But then why wasn't she right here, where Mai was standing? He'd never woken up in a hospital without her either right there, hurt, or sleeping.

Nobody was touching him, so there was no need to brush anyone off when he tried to stand again. Mai let him- of anyone in the room Mai was the most likely to let him. He stood, wobbly.

Kankuro shifted a little, just to reach off to the side for a bag of chips, but it was enough that Fumiko realized he'd seen her. Gaara stumbled a little but then straightened.

Being dead- or dying, he supposed- had given him a lot of thinking time. If what he had gone through could really be called thinking- more like feeling. Aching. Remembering. Every emotion his mind had stored had gone through his body, not like a movie reel but like he'd relived everything he could remember.

It was fast paced and glittery. Now he didn't remember too much of it at all- like a fleeting dream he couldn't quite catch. But there had been a lot of depression- a lot of sadness, a lot of anger, a lot of blank ice, and a lot of raging fire.

But then there was warm, easy contentedness. Not quite happiness, not quite love, not quite joy, or excitement, or pleasure. But a smooth contentedness, moments where nothing else mattered, where you could lie down all day and be perfectly fine without feeling like you were wasting time, where you could be a Kazekage and play board games at the same time, where you could kiss someone and they would never care if you blushed.

There was so much he had withheld- so much he refused to let go, even if it was eating holes inside him and leaving behind infection. His father. His mother. His almost fickle village. The shadows people expected to forever be cast over him which he would never surpass. Shukaku. The blood on his hands, in his brain.

His darkness that he had shrouded around him and then it got worse when barely any sunshine penetrated, which was completely his fault in the first place. And then he had died, and left everything behind.

Gaara didn't want to do that again.

Fumiko wasn't smiling. She didn't look any better or worse than she had before he passed out- fluttery bandages wrapped tightly around her arms and neck, and probably her chest, too; shadowy circles under her eyes as dark as marker, pale, sallow skin greasy with lack of washing. Her hair hung limp, the ever-curling bounce of her bangs raggedy against her temples.

There were angry red hashes on her lips and around them that looked like they would start to bleed at any given second. Fumiko's brown eyes were completely bloodshot, and when she finally said something, her voice was broken and hoarse and scratchy. "G-ga-gaara…"

Her grungy, destroyed look only seemed darker with the clothes she wore. One of her sleepshirts- one of his old shirts- seemed to hang about her body as she hugged her arms to her chest. She still wore the same knee-length black cargo shorts that she always had, but it seemed so much less cheerful black-on-black.

I did this to you.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, and held out his arms, not really caring that his siblings and Mai were watching.

Her eyes widened, and instead of coming forward like he was expecting, she took a step back. She stared at him like he was a stranger, a fence, a liar and a thief and a friend. Like a colorful shiny shard of glass that had cut her once but was so pretty that she wanted to touch it again.

Gaara's hands lowered again with concern. He started to say, "Fumi-"

And then she was twisting, turning away, and she slithered out the door, slamming it shut behind her with a bang, the echo of which rang with the pound of metal against wooden floors and a strangled, disarticulate sobbing.

...

~ I'm going to kill you. ~

...

She avoided him. It wasn't like he could chase her down- the doctors wouldn't let him leave, going so far as to threaten to sedate him if he refused. He was still too sick, they said, and they didn't want him either moving around or infecting others.

But she didn't come to visit and she tried so hard to keep away that she refused to talk to either Kankuro or Temari and as far as Gaara could tell, Mai.

...

~ Instead of acting on it- although the sand particles in his field of vision were starting to swirl- Gaara took a deep breath. Either Joseki somehow didn't hear the sand hissing about in the gourd by his feet, or he was choosing to ignore it. ~

...

It was driving him insane. He knew- Gaara knew she had been there while he was sick, he could remember her voice and her turpentine smell and her feathery touch, which meant that she hadn't not wanted to see him, but now she was just gone, and Gaara had no idea what that meant.

...

Gaara was willing to bet money on the latter. ~

...

His eyes.

Gaara trusted her.

She streaked paint like she was slashing pieces out of the canvas. There was red, and there was black, and there was blue.

...

~ "I would advise you to be more cautious with your words," he said. ~

...

When they finally let him out of the hospital, Temari intercepted him before he ever got the chance to go searching.

"I need your help," she said. "I'm going crazy trying to figure out your job. I have no clue how Fumiko did it while you were gone."

...

~ Joseki flushed. "I meant no offense, Kazekage-sama." ~

...

It took a while to get everything put down into the ground, but Lee helped. Actually he seemed kind of excited by the prospect of finding a way to make a training ground in the backyard behind her studio. Well, it wasn't really a backyard, more like a ten by ten yard or so space between the hourglass buildings around it.

It was just a few mannequin dummies on sticks like sand and newspaper reinforced scarecrows, along with one practice pillar wrapped with protective stuffed fabric Lee had gotten from who-knows-where.

He beamed. "All finished!" he said cheerily.

"Th-thank you, Lee," Fumiko said.

Lee paused at the husky emptiness that was her voice.

"You know," he said uncertainly, "I really do think you should talk to Gaara."

"I just want to train now, Lee," she said quietly, and after a moment's hesitation, Lee nodded.

"Yes."

...

~ "I'm sure you did not." Gaara's tone could be described by some as acidic, but the council member standing in front of him didn't know him nearly enough to hear anything other than a slight growl. ~

...

Gaara had been expecting to come back to a desk stuffed full with crap.

But this was not the case.

Sure, there was a lot of stuff. Fumiko most likely hadn't been here much longer than a week or so of the entire month. But there were traces of her organization in the piles and the placement of the piles- Temari must have seen it and followed it.

He'd wondered before if she would even be able to do it. Naming her second meant that if he ever died or was incapacitated then she would take over, at least for a short while. Gaara had had a hunch that Fumiko either would have been perfectly fine, or wrecked- much like she was now.

But this was good- he knew where everything sat, he could slip through it easily enough. There were still a few papers here and there with her signature on it, as well as Temari's, where perhaps the system of coming and going was clogged.

His things had been put away neatly- his hat and his robes. He didn't don them yet- no, Gaara still wore mourning clothes, not just for Chiyo but for the many who had died in the attack altogether.

He didn't know who they were. That was something Fumiko already would have filtered through, signed off on, and arranged burials for. Or burnings, he supposed, for any ANBU lost. From her perspective that must have been uncomfortable- giving permission to cremate ANBU and leave the families wondering where the ninja had gone forever.

...

~ "Forgive me my disrespect," Joseki said, but the look on his face suggested otherwise, like the words were distasteful. "However, I must insist that you at least consider-" ~

...

Gaara finally caught her- by accident no less- but when he did, he wasn't expecting not to know what to say.

His head was whirling with questions and concerns and words and letters and entire paragraphs of rehearsed conversation- but he wasn't expecting to see her and when he did every word died on his tongue.

He had just gone back to his- their- bedroom to try and rest or perhaps meditate for a while. Not that he really needed to- the doctors had said he could sleep just fine now that Shukaku was out of him. But sleeping was taboo, so had Gaara decided he wouldn't do so until he absolutely had to.

Fumiko was peeling off the long-sleeved black shirt. She was turned away from him, so Gaara didn't see anything but her back, but that was fine, he'd seen her without a shirt many times walking through his room to grab another, and this time it wasn't even relevant because of the wrappings.

He opened his mouth.

This was the part where his words died.

She really did have bandages around her entire torso- her arms, her chest, her ribs, her neck, although her hands were completely free, like it was merely a second shirt. But now they were ragged and dotted with blood or rips. Where some was torn nearly in half along her ribs he could see bruises in the outline of-

What was that?

What had happened? He hadn't yet gotten the chance to ask. He understood the hunger-look and the sleepless-look but why was she hurt all over?

The shirt itself was practically shredded, but instead of throwing it out, Fumiko wandered into the bathroom with it, probably to throw it in the clothes bin. When she walked back out, she saw him and he saw her.

Alarm bells instantly shrieked in his head. Her face was a light motley of bruises- the kind that would disappear in a week or less- swirled with darker ones, like she had been in some kind of street fight, with a split lip. It was hard to tell if she had any black eyes; she still had circles.

Her eyes quickly darted away and she calmly walked back to her dresser to get another sleep-shirt. As she did Gaara realized her knuckles were split and raw and bleeding.

She pulled the new shirt over her head.

Instinctively, Gaara reached to try and hold her. Touching was important. He had never really instigated contact between them unless he was sleeping and having terrors or she was injured. He didn't know why- something like mine and something like there and something like real.

Fumiko ducked his arm, said, very softly, "I need to go," and then left, not bothering to close the door behind her.

...

~ "Joseki-san, we have gone over this over and over before. I'm getting rather tired of it." ~

...

"Holy First," were the first words out of Mai's mouth the first time she went looking for Fumiko.

Fumiko paused in her rhythmic left-right-left-right against the training post, although Lee didn't stop yelling for a good few more seconds.

"Hi, Mai," Fumiko said.

She was drenched in sweat and felt sticky. She could only assume that her ribs had healed fully because they barely protested with her new daily routines. Her ankle was completely fine now. The only steadily growing problem was her prosthetic- eventually Fumiko knew she would have to stop and stay in bed for a long time to let the pressure-bruises fade away.

The more physical problems were okay- she trained and sparred with Lee, how was she not going to get bruised like a peach? Her knuckles, well, she could deal. She treated them fine with salves and antiseptics and bandages and very mild painkillers.

On her back she wore an archer's sheath- the thing that held all of their arrows, she wasn't exactly sure what it was called- only it had been emptied of arrows. Now it was used to hold her modified Bo Staff- her Bakuryou.

The next word out of Mai's mouth Fumiko didn't want to repeat.

"Hello, Mai," Lee greeted.

"Shit, Fumiko," Mai said, putting her hands on her hips. "This isn't what I meant!"

"This is how you train."

"Not nonstop!" she paused. "No, that's a lie. But seriously, there's a difference between training through the pain and knowing when your body's kaput!"

"Is it? I feel fine."

"No, you don't, and I'm starting to think that's the problem." Mai said the words with a dead kind of finality. "Oh come on, don't give me that life is just sugar and rainbows look, Fumiko! Trust me, it's no secret that you look like absolute hell. Oh, yeah, and you're avoiding Gaara!"

"Fumiko," Lee said, "I am going to get us more bottled water."

And that's when Fumiko realized how uncomfortable Lee really was playing along with her issues. He left them alone, practically skidding through the back door of Fumiko's studio.

"Mai-"

"Don't wanna hear it. Spar with me."

"What?"

"Spar with me."

"But you just said-"

Mai gave an irritated groan. "Just pull out your weapon thingie and attack me, jeez."

Mai waited. When Fumiko did no such thing, she shrugged. "Fine. Well at least defend yourself."

"Wha-"

She was on the ground with a simple little fwip of sand. "Come on, you can do better than that."

Fumiko could feel her face twist. That she hadn't seen or heard that coming at all was unacceptable. She struggled back up to her feet. Mai had simply hit her hard in the chest with her arm in shunshin, she realized.

Mai tried it again, only this time Fumiko anticipated it and dodged to the left, reaching back and pulling her staff instinctively, pointed end forward.

"Agility training, huh?" Mai turned back around. "You know, I never did think I'd be able to spar with you, ever."

Again, only this time Fumiko jerked her arms and caught Mai's fingers on her staff and pivoted, stabbing the tip into the sand, and it was like grabbing a pole at top speed. Mai careened around her back, twisting over her discorded feet and hitting the sand hard with a yelp.

Fumiko felt just as stunned as Mai looked as she pulled herself up off the ground. Fumiko spared a quick, surprised glace at her weapon.

And then she smiled, just a little bit.

Of course Mai wasn't actually fighting her- if she was her swords would be out or Fumiko would have a few body parts puttering with fire. If Fumiko knew her sister at all, Mai was trying to figure something out. But what?

Still, the fact that she had caught Mai off guard… it was leagues above what she had ever hoped to do through the course of her life. Maybe Mai wasn't the strongest ninja in Suna- actually, she most certainly wasn't- but she was formidable.

"Okay, wow," Mai said, back on her feet again. "That-"

Heady and prepared, Fumiko slipped into a Body Flicker herself, kicking up sand as she went. Mai reacted instinctively, lips curled in shock, grabbing Fumiko's pelting forearm and elbow braced with her Bakuryou.

"Whoa, I-"

And Fumiko twisted, kicking her good foot back toward her and clipping out Mai's foot. Her sister went down with a surprised squeal, lashing out with her foot and beginning to duck into a roll at the same time.

Fumiko, caught off guard, had time to think Kami this is going to hurt-

She sprawled, trying and failing to use the momentum of the kick to roll back up like Lee was teaching her to.

"Ow," Fumiko muttered. "My ribs."

Mai had somersaulted backwards and sprung back to her feet, almost grinning. Fumiko stabbed her Bakuryou into the ground and used it to lever herself back into a standing position. Her side screamed, a good, well-aimed clip on Mai's part-

And then Mai was behind her, arms slithering around her neck like she was going to chokehold-

Fumiko yanked up her Bakuryou without really thinking about it, swirled it in her fingers so that the pointed end was facing forward, and slammed the weighted end backwards.

There was a very audible thumping sound of metal on flesh. Mai's air puffed out besides Fumiko's ear, and the grip around her neck started to loosen, and she whipped around to try and clip her head and knock her out-

Heaving still, Mai ducked, and Fumiko's swing went wild, throwing off her balance. As she fell into a crouch Mai snaked out her foot, catching Fumiko's prosthetic and sending her crashing to the ground. Fumiko's air left her lungs.

Mai was on her in a flash, digging her knees into the sand on either side of her, hands pinning Fumiko's shoulders to the sand. Panting, Mai wheezed, "You're actually trying to-"

Fumiko grunted, pulling her knees up and sideways at the same time as she dropped her Bakuryou and brought up both arms, grabbing Mai's forearms, and rolled with her weight to the right. They rolled, and Fumiko ended up on top for a second, sand puffing into a cloud around them.

Then Mai retaliated, spinning them again so that she was back on top and this time pushing her forearm against Fumiko's throat to keep her down.

Fumiko writhed, and, finding no other escape, sent out her chakra.

"Yeah, okay," Mai said inside of the Genjutsu. "I was wondering when you were gonna do that."

"What?"

In her shock, Fumiko released the Genjutsu, and then it was just them, panting and sweaty, Mai's arm still shoved against her neck. Fumiko was completely spent- she'd already been training when Mai got there, and now she was just tired beyond belief.

"How- did you-"

"Not important," Mai said, and she seemed to have gotten her air back. "You were actually trying to win that." She paused. "Goddamn."

"Wasn't that the point?"

"The point? No, the point is that you were fighting me like I was an enemy. No biggie, that's definitely a good thing. But why?"

"You were attacking me!"

"No," Mai said, shaking her head. She loosened her arm, pulling back slightly. Fumiko, acknowledging that she had lost, let her slide off, and took her sister's proffered hand to heave herself back up. "Were you actually fighting me?"

Fumiko froze.

And then everything finally spilled out.

...

~ "Kazekage-sama, as a council member, it is my job to point out that which might not be necessarily pleasing to you. But rest assured, my intentions are only for the well being of this village." ~

...

"Oh my Kami," Mai blurted when she was done, pointing a finger into her face. "You have PTSD!"

Fumiko gently pushed the hand away. "What?"

"The guilt, the visions, the drive to fix something you can't fix to the point of pulling yourself to pieces…" Mai pursed her lips, counting them off on one hand as she went. They were both sitting down now, crisscrossed in the sand. "It's one of the things I know about. Something ninja need to be really careful about noticing."

"Don't tell Gaara," Fumiko said. "He'll hate me."

"For not saving him, or for saving yourself? Gaara isn't capable of even being irritated at you, let alone hate you."

"Please."

"You don't think I could convince you to take a Psyche, do you? 'Cause I'm no doctor, and-"

"No."

Mai sighed. "I didn't think so."

...

~ "Not pleasing to me?" In his surprise, Gaara almost dropped the brush. His father had to have dealt with this as well. Which, thinking back, might explain a few things. "Having a child and being married should not be of a political matter alone, Joseki-san." ~

...

Gaara was getting more and more concerned.

As time wore on- maybe three or four days since he saw Fumiko in the bedroom- he didn't catch her, although Fumiko continued to put ruined clothes in the hamper. Which was disturbing because that meant she wasn't sleeping.

At all.

...

~ "Unfortunately, Lord Kazekage, sometimes should and are can be two drastically different things." ~

...

Deep breath in, long breath out.

Deep breath in, long breath out.

Deep breath in-

Fumiko curled and undulated her chakra like bulbous tentacles, and it bubbled and cooled like magma coming out of the ground, slow and unstoppable.

Long breath out.

Her own chakra's color was hard to explain. As an artist, she knew a bit more about colors than the average person. And there were a thousand shades that almost correctly described it- blue, brown, aqua, teal, pastel brown, cobalt, lapis, field drab, sapphire, azure, aegean... but none of them quite fit.

Her chakra was… a dark, soft, earthy blue, like a shaded stream with a muddy bottom, cool and tinkling and calming. Which was funny, in a way, because chakra as a thing was extremely warm.

Practicing Genjutsu was hard unless you had someone to practice it on. She could randomly cast it on random people walking by her shop, and she did sometimes, but there was still that little wiggle from pre-Deidara- That's rude.

Well, not quite as dramatic as pre-Deidara, but something had shifted- priorities, maybe. She still painted but those… those weren't on her gallery wall.

And she was beginning to notice another problem as well.

...

~ He was serious. His tone was deadly serious and final. Gaara pondered between using his sand and bothering to actually stand up and punch him, but picked option c and merely dipped his brush in ink again. ~

...

Usually people noticed when Gaara was fed up with something.

And usually they tended to stay out of his way.

Which was exactly what was happening now, as he practically stormed out of his bedroom on the fifth morning since he had seen Fumiko last. There were more torn clothes in the bin. Clothes that hadn't been there when he'd laid down to rest.

Enough is enough.

The only two places he had ever been positive she was in were usually either the Tower or her gallery. Or her previous apartment house, but Gaara got the feeling that if anyone were to nag Fumiko to speak to him again it would be her mother, so she wouldn't be there.

She obviously wasn't in the Tower. That much was a given.

So she had to be in her studio.

He didn't get very far before he ran into Mai and Lee with their heads down, talking to each other like co-conspirators. They were maybe a ten minute's walk from Fumiko's studio.

"Mai," Gaara called. "Mai, I need to talk to you."

She startled, glancing up at him like she'd been caught skipping class. Lee blinked at him with his big, round eyes, like a curious deer. Gaara braced himself for the fit of excited yelling but it never came.

"Mai, I need to check in with Gai-sensei. We're leaving today. We have to catch up with team Kakashi."

"Right, right. See ya, bowl-cut."

Lee nodded, then jumped straight up the wall of a building.

Mai sighed.

"Mai-"

"Why?"

Gaara didn't say anything for a second. "You know why."

Mai scoffed and looked away, hands on her hips. They were standing in the middle of the street; amidst the throng of vendors and pulse of people. Gaara had to step closer to hear her. He realized as he did so how tall she was getting.

"I can't, Gaara. Con-fi-damn-dential."

At that she started to turn away, but Gaara grabbed her arm. She stopped but didn't turn back.

"Is she mad at me?"

Mai seemed to consider this. "No."

"Is it that I broke my promise?" Mai jerked, head slinging around. Her eyes were surprised, and in depth, a little impressed. "I swore," he said as explanation. "that I would never lie to her again and I did."

"That," Mai said, "is sort of a part of the problem, but she isn't mad at you for breaking it. It's that you broke it at all."

Gaara blinked slowly. "So she is mad at me?"

"No! Ah, hell, Gaara, none of this is your fault."

"Mai," Gaara pleaded. Her skin was warm against his hand. "Please."

Mai stared at him for a long, long minute, the traffic of rush hour flowing around them like water around a rock. Then she sighed.

"Alright, Gaara. I barely understand it myself. But it's like Fumiko realized you can be beaten. That you can die. And the promise thing is a part of it, sure, but it's more that she knows now that your word isn't law, you know? Shit happens. Bad shit." Mai's face was grave. "But she just didn't realize that until now."

The gravity of those words hit Gaara like a ton of bricks.

Fumiko was Fumiko because of her strange glow. The fact that she knew bad things were bad things, and still saw the world as pure and good and bright. That she slid through bad times like oil, thinking she was swimming, and enjoying it.

What if she didn't think like that anymore?

"But why does she run from me?" Gaara's grip tightened against Mai's elbow almost against his will, too tight, but Mai didn't seem to notice or care.

"She's scared, Gaara."

"Scared of what?"

"Of getting you back. Of her second chance. Of screwing it up again. It's- uh-" Mai's eyebrows scrunched together. "Ech, I'm no good at this stuff- it's that her head is spinning, Gaara, and she thinks it's her fault. Her whole world just got rocked."

This didn't make any sense.

"What?"

"You, Gaara," Mai snapped at last. All of her muscles tensed like coiled wires, like she was just hearing her own words for the first time. "She's scared to love you."

With those final words, looking disturbed and angry, she tore away out of his grasp and stalked off into the crowd. Gaara let her, too stunned, really, to do anything but stand there.

Scared to… Love him?

No.

...

~ "I do not think, Joseki-san, that you would approve of any child of mine moreso than you would me." ~

...

The studio smelled as it always had. Paints and new canvas and the lavender smell of the incense burner beside the cashbox.

There were freshly painted and older canvases everywhere- every easel was in use, along with the floor, the floor was scattered with half-finished and completed paintings. They were similar and different at the same time- ragged dark slashes of colors that mixed into ugly shades of brown or black. Some made things like clouds or birds or some kind of metal puppet piece, a lot of black and red, and some yellow.

There were a lot of clear images he wasn't sure he wanted to see. Two or three of them, for instance, were of his own dead body, in one blurred and indistinct, in the other two razor sharp at different angles. One of the sharp ones was merely his face. The other was of a piece of his torso, it looked like, from the clothes and the limp hand beside them in the grassy area where he had woken up.

Some flamed with explosions. Others were of dusty, sandy horizons from a strange upwards perspective like she had been very high up. They shimmered with mirage heat. Gaara touched one of these dry ones with his fingertips, moving slowly through the easels, careful not to trod on any artworks.

One- and this one he paused at- was of a girl with dark red hair like his own, almost onyx eyes, pale skin. She was wearing an expression he couldn't quite decipher, like pity and pain, like giving up, like bittersweet anger.

The girl from before; the one that had disappeared into darkness after breaking into the studio. Gaara couldn't remember her name. Why had Fumiko painted her likeness in such a way?

The incense burner was going strong, not quite managing to diffuse the turpentine smell that followed Fumiko around in clouds. Which was strange, considering there was no one in here. Well, the light was on, so someone was here, just outside, perhaps?

Gaara stepped up to blow it out, but his eyes were caught away from it to the counter it sat on.

Paper. There was paper all over it, scraps of paper, notebook paper, rips of canvas, copy paper for typewriters. They were all covered in different kinds of colors: calligraphy ink, oil, watercolor, acrylic, pencil, wax crayon.

Gaara picked one up. Black and white and gray from pencil shading, it was clouds- the Suna sky, from the view of a rooftop, it looked like, with a sky so dark the wispy Suna clouds looked bright. Gaara held it to the side, comparing it to the others, and realized they were all the same thing- the sky, from different perspectives and times of day. Morning, night, midday, clouds stained with sunrise or sunset or just plain sun, sometimes no clouds at all, and sometimes all it was was clouds- rainclouds.

Gaara flipped and brushed through them, and realized that doodled in pencil and marker across the counter were more little sketches- the moon, the sun, clouds, sometimes birds.

"What…" Gaara murmured to himself, carefully placing the papers back on the counters. He looked back over his shoulder again, surveying the mess of colors and twisted scenes. "What is all this?"

He was distracted again as he finally put an image to the sound blinking along the entire time he had been in there. A soft thumping sound, one that would be unheard to a civilian or even a Genin. Even to him it was just a small, bothersome white noise.

A punching sound. Like hitting a bag or a dummy.

He blew out the incense light before following the sound to the back entrance. Opening it, Gaara blinked against the bright Suna midday sun.

He meant to close the door behind him, but the thought completely escaped his mind when he finally took a glance around.

It was a miniature training area.

And there was Fumiko, pounding away at a training post, not just using her fists but her palms and her forearms and her elbows, much like you were taught to do in the Academy. There was a careful, rickety center of balance to her stance, with her legs spread weirdly to allow her to twist her upper body around without falling. Against her back was some kind of archer's sheath. A Bo staff with a metal tip clanged about inside it.

Gaara thought, now, about running into Mai and Lee, both of whom had hit marks and slivers of cuts on their faces and arms.

She was sparring. That was how she kept ruining her clothes. Sparring and training.

But it looked like she was dying. Between the bruises and the sleepless, haunted look and the way she was swaying, Gaara realized that she still hadn't probably eaten anything solid.

In how long? More than a month? Had she slept at all? That was beyond dangerous and unhealthy, and now she was training taijutsu with Lee?

"Fumiko!"

It almost hurt to see her, and he realized that sounded in his voice.

Fumiko nearly jumped out of her skin. As it was she stumbled backward with a startled yelp and started to fall.

Kami, hadn't this happened a thousand times? Gaara barely thought about the sand that jumped up just behind her, a little cyclone that only solidified after she'd hit it to prevent impact pain.

Fumiko made no sounds as the sand tilted her back upright and sunk back into the ground, just avoided his eyes and brushed the sand out of her hair. There was paint on her hands and her bandages, which was new, or maybe she had just always changed them before.

He realized she was eyeing the open door behind him like an escape hatch. Something pulled out of his throat, like a whine or a groan. "Please don't run away from me again."

"I'm not running away," she said.

"Then look at me," he demanded.

She did. Fumiko looked so tired it was like she would fall over any second.

Then Gaara ran out of words to say. He wasn't angry, and he wasn't begging, he was just confused, and alone, and he had just died a few weeks ago; sometimes it didn't seem like his brain had quite recovered.

"I want to," Fumiko said quietly. "But I…"

"What?"

"I don't know," she said, raising up her hands in defeat, like a wide shrug. She gnawed on her bottom lip in between words. "I don't know."

"I- are you angry with me?"

"No. Yes." Fumiko paused, face morphing like she might cry. "No. No."

She was standing almost six yards away, but when he tried to step closer she backed away, grabbing onto the training post like she was going to try and hide behind it. "Then why are you-"

"I can't," she spluttered.

"Can't what?"

"Can't- I can't- ugh." She shook her head, but in her state, Gaara couldn't tell if she was in denial or trying not to faint. "I can't-"

"You, Gaara," Mai snapped at last. All of her muscles tensed like coiled wires, like she was just hearing her own words for the first time. "She's scared to love you."

"Please," Gaara said. "Please don't push me away. Please don't leave me alone. Please don't make me do this without you."

Now she really did duck away behind the post, her back to the cloth. Gaara could see two fingers of her right hand. "Don't say that," Fumiko said, so softly and squishy that Gaara barely heard it. "Don't sound like that."

"I can't," Gaara said, frustrated.

Fumiko said nothing.

Gaara took a few steps closer, but maybe Fumiko felt better hiding with the post between them, because she didn't shuffle away. He was still a ways away when he stopped, feet kicking up tiny storms of sand that didni't quite settle, rustling about minutely to his turmoil like dogs.

"I'm sorry I died." Gaara wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands, rubbing the back of his neck, crossing them across his chest, so he left them hanging at his sides. "I'm sorry I lost."

Nothing.

"But I'm here now. We're together again."

Nothing still from behind the post. Her fingers slipped away from the edge. Now he couldn't see her at all, but there was blood on the fabric of the post, and morbid as it sounded, he looked at that while he spoke.

"We can play," he said, "Or look at the stars. I'm not dead. None of it is your fault. I- I won't lie again. But you have to eat. You have to sleep. Please, you're hurting me, too, and I-"

"What am I supposed to do if you die again?" she snapped, more viciously than Gaara had ever thought her capable of. She didn't come out of her hiding place, which made it hard to put a face to the biting tone from behind the post. "What am I supposed to do, Gaara?"

"I don't know."

"How do you not know? You're a shinobi! You're supposed to know everything! I don't know if you'll die again and I don't want to not know what to do!"

Gaara stopped cold. He spread his hands helplessly. "I don't know."

"Stop saying you don't know and just answer me!"

"I don't know!" he snapped back angrily. Then he forced himself to take a breath. When he spoke again his voice was quieter, not controlled exactly, but quiet. "Only you know."

"But-" A sob. Her voice was quieter now as well. "But I don't know."

"Then I guess no one does."

There was a long few seconds of absolutely nothing before there was a shaky, sighing breath, and then Fumiko carefully stepped out from behind the post, staring at him like someone would from behind a corner, then all the way.

"Gaara…" she said. "Gaara… how do I know you won't leave me again?"

There were a thousand things he wanted to say. A thousand things he probably should have said. But she had never asked him that before. And saying that he wouldn't would be almost a lie. Saying that he would try not to seemed too much and too little, too late.

So he just said, very, very softly, "You don't."

Her face crumpled and then she ran to him, sobbing, and hit him so hard he almost fell over, burying her face in the collar of his neck. Her tiny body heaved with tears. After a second's delay Gaara held her back, gripping her so tightly he knew it probably hurt, but she didn't move, so neither did he.

"Love you," she snuffled into his clothes.

"You too," he said back. That response was virtually instinct by now, but she relaxed in his arms, satisfied.

...

Joseki flinched. "Kazekage-sama, we are surely not trying to replace you!" ~

...

Fumiko spent a long time in the bath, wishing she was capable of taking a normal shower. She wanted to feel it against her face, not wallow about in water so hot it was like soup.

So she turned the heat on all the way and turned on the shower head, standing up on her knees, sort of. She shoved her fingers through her knotted hair. She'd washed it three times already, and was washing it a fourth. She supposed that having hair tangle and knot for over a month would want to stay tangled and knotted. It made her injured knuckles smart and sting, along with a few tiny scrapes and scratches.

But she didn't mind. She liked the feel of the water pounding against her back and shoulders. It was also the first time in a while she'd had her bandages off longer than it took to wind new ones in their place, and now that she really let herself look at them, she cringed.

They weren't pitch black like they had been in the beginning. Now it was a motley of light green-yellow, dark green, and fading green-purple in various stages of healing. Some would be gone within the week. Some wouldn't fade for perhaps another full month.

Her ribs were colorful as well, although they were much lighter: her chest and ribcage had sustained less pressure than her arms, especially her left arm, which had been caught completely. Her right arm had been partly free from the elbow down, so there were no real bruises on her right forearm, but the rest of it was just as bruised as the right.

Well, aside from the bruises and tiny scrapes she had from training. At least her voice was better now- she didn't have to stutter through her words anymore to swallow. It still sounded funny, but was almost normal again.

From what she had seen in the mirror, the darkest part of her now was a contest between her eyes and the blotch of darkness the size of a small child's fist on her throat.

She felt that now, bringing her hands down from her detangling hair. It hurt to touch.

It felt nice to be clean again. To be full again- Gaara had gently poked and prodded her to eat food until she agreed, then pulling leftovers from the refrigerator and cookies from the pantry.

She'd told him that after so long with only liquid and artificial foods, cookies probably wasn't the healthiest option.

He'd responded fiercely that he really didn't give a damn as long as she ate them.

The shower smelled like clean steam and lavender soap; lavender hair conditioner. She hadn't realized how much of the stuff the Tower supplied them with was lavender scented until she really thought about it, the smell of lavender in the hot clouds of mist.

When she finished, her hair was still a little messy, but she didn't care, toweling it off and grabbing a hairbrush to bring with her. Gaara hid his face in a pillow as she put on sleep-clothes, a long sleeved black shirt and dark blue fluffy pj pants. The only reason she decided to wear a bra to bed was because the pressure felt nice on the tips of her ribcage.

Fumiko didn't wrap her bruises. There was no need to. Before it had just been a matter of hiding them- it wasn't like they could get infected or anything. So she dumped the old ones into the trash and left it at that- and it felt much nicer without them on, more free.

She sat carefully on the bed, leaning down to pull of her prosthetic and peel away the sock, which acted like a kind of cue. Gaara rolled over. He watched her silently for a few minutes. Fumiko could feel it on her back, but she didn't mind it anymore. She propped them up against the side of the bed. When she straightened, she tugged the brush through her hair.

There was still that guilt, that I let you die.

But Gaara was right. She was wasting her- their- time with what-ifs. What-ifs that might or might not happen at all. Maybe she wouldn't be able to deal with it if it happened. But it wasn't happening. Nothing was certain.

She found it easier to wear herself like she used to. There were differences in it, but it was achingly close to how she had been- slower. More sad. But he was still- there, and so was she, and they were they, now, in the present.

Fumiko started as she felt fingers on her hand. Cool, no fever, no coldness. So it hadn't been Shukaku at all. It had always been Gaara. The fingers pulled gently at her hair and took up the brush. Fumiko's own hands folded into her lap. She tilted her head back slightly, not fighting the tiny content smile that tugged her lips.

"Thank you," she murmured.

Gaara didn't say anything, lifting locks of her hair up from her neck and combing through them with the brush methodically, piece by piece.

One thing she had always thought was strange about them was his careful, precise approach to everything- yet he was messy with his things, with his desks and rooms. Fumiko herself was more careless and did everything on a whim, yet she was almost professional with her neatness. Aside from having sand on her floors, she liked having things where they were supposed to be.

He could see the back of her head where she hadn't been able to, and so it worked faster than it would have had she continued to work with it.

"Are you going to sleep?" he asked.

"Maybe. I don't know."

"I'll stay with you." A pause. "You did a good job of taking care of Sunagakure, by the way."

"Yeah?"

"Yes." He didn't pause, but there was a short silence between those words and the next. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about posting you as second… honestly I forgot all about it-"

"It's no problem. It… gave me something to focus on."

Fumiko could sense Gaara's relaxed smile. "Good."

More silence.

"Gaara?"

"Yes?"

"I think me and Yoshiki had a fight."

"You did?" There was a tug on her hair, a surprised movement. "When?"

"I'm not sure. Before…" she hesitated. "Before Kankuro and the others headed out after you."

"Oh." Gaara was almost done brushing, she could feel against her neck how much less tangled her hair was. Fumiko had flat hair by nature; flat, straight hair that was usually really easy to brush as long as she took a shower every day or two. "What about?"

"He…" Fumiko mulled it over in her head for a second, frowning in thought. "I dunno. I'm not sure exactly. But he thought you were dead. I didn't. And then…"

"Oh." The fingers left her hair. There was a soft clinking sound and a creak as Gaara leaned back on the bed to put the hairbrush on the nightstand closest to the windows.

"I've never fought with him before."

Gaara chuckled, an amused, aborted snicker. "I don't think you've fought with anyone before. Argued, yes. But not fought."

Haven't I?

"I don't know how to feel about it. Honestly I completely forgot about the whole thing until just now. Now I kinda feel bad…"

"Don't. I'm sure it was his fault, but even so, we can find him tomorrow, if you want to."

Fumiko relaxed. "I think I'll sleep."

"Alright."

They settled back into the blankets. Fumiko didn't really care that her hair was still wet. Gaara flicked off the light on his nightstand.

To her complete surprise, Gaara put his arms around her when they finally settled, pulling her close so that her back was against him. But it felt good, and it felt right, so she closed her eyes, yawned, stretched, and fell instantly asleep for the first time in a month and a half.

...

~ "There is no need for any of what you suggest. However, I suggest that you leave me to my work." ~

...

Gaara's body was pale white, face fractured beyond repair, like a broken china doll. Blood seeped out from under him, and the blindingly bright, cracked, dry sand sucked it up, feeding the parched earth. The desert was turning red with it, absorbing him. The color slowly expanded like he was there to nourish the sand and dust surrounding him forever in every direction.

"Gaara!" Fumiko screamed from atop her bird. She dove down in a spiral straight to him, desperately trying to get him out of the desert before it killed him completely. Her heart pounded, and the wind swished her hair not into her eyes, but fanning out into the air behind her. The bird's wings seemed to send vibrations into the air around them, distorting the color, and the world rippled.

Halfway down, the bird turned it's head back around, staring right at her with hollow eyes, and screeched. Fumiko screamed and fell back, but before she could tumble off the bird, its tail wrapped around her body. Fumiko's scream was choked off suddenly. In her terror she realized that her own ears were silent- no blood rushed or pounded. Fumiko had no heartbeat.

She was frozen, unable to move, and her yelps rang only through her head, silent. There was a soft tuf as the bird landed, flapping it's wings and stirring up the starving sand. Once its taloned feet touched the ground, the bird melted like candle wax in the intense heat, slipping and sliding over her skin. It drained into the cracks in the earth as the desert claimed it as well.

Fumiko fell with no sound, and strangely enough, she didn't feel it. Her body was still rigid, her joints stiff. She couldn't move her fingers. She stared up into the night, and in the light of the moon, bloodred clouds that looked sewn into the air drifted aimlessly across the black velvet skies.

When her eyes finally flicked to her right, Fumiko realized that she had been dropped next to Gaara's still form. His eyes were closed, eyelids as dark as the night above them. She realized with a squirmish nausea that the sand underneath her was damp.

Gaara? she asked, then paused, frowning. Gaara, wake up!

He didn't stir.

Red sand crawled up her arms, wet and slippery, and Fumiko shrieked in her head. The sand was getting hotter, bubbling around her, and she realized with no small amount of horror that it was rising around her and Gaara.

No, not rising! she sobbed. We're sinking!

Footsteps squished through the hungry sand, and Fumiko's visible eye- that and half of her mouth were the only parts of her face still above the feeding desert- caught a glimpse of blond hair and a knowing smirk.

Deidara reached down with one hand- the other was wrapped tightly in clean yellow sand, not the red, satanic monster eating them. Fumiko realized that Gaara was still trying to protect her; but wasn't he dead? Deidara didn't flinch when his arm imploded from sand coffin. The blood splattered over the sand, which absorbed it.

Deidara picked Gaara up and tucked him under his remaining arm as if his prisoner weighed no more than a duffel bag. Gaara hung limp like a rag doll, but when Fumiko looked at his face in a panic, she saw that his eyes were open and glassed over like polished marble. He stared.

Put him down! Fumiko howled, and choked when sand forced it's way into her open mouth and down her throat. It tasted like dust and iron, the desert and blood, Gaara and death, and it was grossly warm.

She coughed, gagging. Fumiko couldn't breathe. The sand was everywhere, and Deidara just smirked at her and turned to leave. Fumiko didn't know if Gaara was dead or not. Her vision was cloaked in red as the sand claimed her completely.

...

~ Joseki pondered this. Perhaps he was weighing how badly he wanted to say something futile with the quickly shortening tone of his Kazekage. Whatever the case, he straightened, gave a stiff bow, and turned, stalking out of his door. ~

...

Fumiko screamed and shot up, gagging on air and gasping as she tried to spit out the bloody sand.

Her forehead connected with something hard, and Fumiko yelled in pain and thumped back down. Her heart was jack rabbiting in her chest and her breathing was erratic, and she looked around wildly as her eyes cleared. She wasn't in her room, but this one was easily just as familiar.

Sand coated the floor, and a familiar voice cursed somewhere nearby. Fumiko looked to the other side of the bed and saw Gaara rubbing his forehead. Nothing connected for a minute- Gaara was alive, why were they in his room, the sand was going to kill her, Akatsuki! But after a second, the adrenaline began to wear off. Gaara, during that second, looked up at her, hand still in his hair.

Fumiko sobbed and threw herself at him, wrapping his arms around his neck. He flinched and slammed his hand down on the bed to keep from falling. His other arm carefully wound around her back.

"Fumiko, what's wrong? You wouldn't wake up..."

She didn't answer and just cried into Gaara's neck, breathing in his smell of desert and something else that wasn't blood, something more subtle. His skin was cool, but not cold like it had been before. Fumiko was hit with a sense of deja vu as he murmured sweet nothings into her ear and rubbed her back.

Just like all those years ago when Shukaku had made him cry, and Fumiko had held him and rubbed his back and told him things that didn't mean anything besides companionship. Now, the roles were reversed, and Fumiko was crying. This realization shocked her tears away, and she just sniffled and reminded herself that he was alive.

After a few lifetimes of just sitting in an awkward position and clutching him, Gaara ventured, "... what were you dreaming about?"

"You were dead," Fumiko said first, because that was the most important part. "or dying. I'm... not sure. I was stuck, I couldn't move, and the sand was all bloody and the sky had Akatsuki clouds and and then Deidara came and-"

"Calm down," Gaara said when Fumiko's voice began to rise hysterically.

"Th-the next time I see those freaks I'm gonna-"

"Fumiko," Gaara said firmly. "Calm down."

Fumiko sighed, a long, drawn out breath of air that seemed to drain away the nightmare and replace it with exhaustion. Fumiko's stomach still writhed with leftover fear and sadness from the day's events and her body shook slightly with the effects of adrenaline, but the knot of tension in her gut she'd had since Gaara was taken finally unraveled.

"I know..." she said.

"Know what?" he asked, and pulled back to look at her, keeping his hands on her shoulders. Fumiko realized he had been sleeping- actually sleeping this time, not just lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. His eyes blinked away sleep and his hair was tousled. Suddenly she felt terrible. The shukaku was gone, the only thing he'd ever wanted, and here she was acting depressed.

"I know you're alive." she said shakily, even though her heart wasn't so sure. Gifts like Gaara didn't just fall from the sky, after all, and Fumiko didn't want to let herself believe she'd taken him for granted. She hadn't known what she had until it was gone- she'd always just accepted that he would be there. Now that she had gotten him back, her entire being rebelled the thought of it ever happening again. "I know I can't take on Deidara. I know I'm being bitter. I also know that I just woke you up."

"That's fine," he said, squinting in thought. "Sleeping with no dreams is... unsettling." He smiled, small and amused. "And I think you'd give Deidara a run for his money."

"Yeah," she said. "I'll tear him to bits."

"That doesn't sound like you," Gaara observed. His light smirk vanished. "Are you okay?"

"What if they had taken me, instead of just going after you?" Fumiko said, slipping out from under his hands and shifting so that she could lean up against Gaara instead. She looked up at his face. "What if he had managed to blow up the village? What if I had died?"

Gaara's mouth twitched. Fumiko couldn't see, but the blankets moved like he was clenching them. His body tensed. Fumiko knew the feeling- she'd broken a few things before she made use of herself while Kankuro was recovering. "They won't ever get you."

"That," Fumiko said. "Now take that and multiply it by a thousand because you actually were taken and you did die."

Fumiko knew what he would have said a couple of years ago, back when it was him and her against the world, before Uzumaki Naruto and becoming a kazekage and discovering love. Back then, he would have said things like I'm not as important or That's not the same thing or You would be better off without me, not the other way around.

Now, though, he didn't try to disprove what she said. He knew that she loved him as much as he loved her, and she knew that he loved her as much as she loved him. It was a given.

"Oh."

"Oh," Fumiko echoed. "I'm definitely not okay yet."

"But there's nothing wrong now," Gaara said. "Everything's okay."

"I just keep thinking..." Fumiko murmured, staring at her hands. They rested in her lap, and seemed monotone without the paint she hadn't used in weeks. In her mind's eye, she saw again the bright blue light, and the moment when Gaara came back to life. "What if Granny Chiyo hadn't been there? What if Uzumaki Naruto hadn't changed her like he did, or she was defeated by Sasori?"

Gaara was silent.

"What if Uzumaki Naruto hadn't known he could give her chakra?" Fumiko demanded. "Or if it hadn't worked? That resurrection jutsu was only a theory. What if-"

"What ifs are useless now," Gaara said in his gravelly voice.

Fumiko wanted to believe it. She really did. But she couldn't. That fear rushed through her veins like hot blood, painful and present. The fear of the pain she had felt, fear of losing him again and this time not getting him back.

"This one isn't," Fumiko shot back. "What if they come back? Gaara, what if we have to fight them again?"

"Why would they? They removed the tailed beast."

"They didn't steal Shukaku just out of the goodness of their hearts. Something big is gonna happen. And I heard the story from Uzumaki Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi," Fumiko said. "I asked them all. Deidara was itching to test himself against the jinchuriki. He didn't win against you, Gaara. He beat you but he didn't win... I'm afraid. Besides, they want to kill Uzumaki Naruto."

There was a long pause. Fumiko held her breath.

"... he caught me off guard," Gaara said at last. "It won't happen again."

"What won't happen again?" Fumiko cried. She shifted again so that now she was lying on her back on the bed. She did what they did when they ever needed to clear their heads when they were young, and stared up at the kaleidoscope of paintings on the ceiling. "You won't defend the village? Because that's how he got you the first time."

She rubbed her face. Fumiko knew that this probably wasn't the best way to vent her confusion, but sugar be damned, she had just woken up from her first ever nightmare after the worst couple weeks of her life. Fumiko was going to ask every question until her body settled on being either happy again or terrified.

Gaara seemed shaken by her negative attitude. She couldn't really blame him- she'd been genuinely positive her entire life. But right now, in this moment, she was vulnerable. For the first time, her filter didn't reshape the situation, only magnified it until Fumiko's breath caught.

"Next time, I'll kill him," he vowed. "He won't be able to threaten the village."

Sand blew steadily outside the window. Fumiko just stared at a shooting star she'd painted when she was twelve, and realized that she hadn't seen one for so many years that she had forgotten what it looked like. With all the craziness that had been happening for the past few months, Fumiko hadn't really looked at the night sky in far too long.

She started when a hand hovered into her vision, but then realized it was Gaara's. His palm touched her face, and he covered her eyes.

"Gaara?"

"Don't look at that." he said quietly.

She didn't ask why. Gaara had his own way of doing things, and this was just his way of blocking out the bad. And besides, his hand was cool and worked wonders on her forming headache, and she just wanted the touch. They stayed like that for a while, Gaara sitting and Fumiko lying down and resting in the temporary darkness.

"Gaara," she mumbled after a long time.

"Yes?"

"I didn't tell you something." she confessed. I didn't save you.

"What?"

Fumiko kept her eyes open. If she closed them, that would be a bad blackness filled with images, but if she left them open, it was a Gaara-made darkness that was soft and gentle. It was better than looking at the paintings.

"After they... took you, Kankuro and I went after them."

"You what?"

He didn't remove his hand, but Fumiko felt his fingers twitch.

"We followed Deidara and found him and Sasori out a couple miles from Suna. You weren't dead, just unconscious and I... I tried, Gaara. I really did. I held him in a Genjutsu for as long as I could, but Kankuro couldn't fight him. Sasori stopped him. Then tried to stop me. Kankuro protected me, but I just... it wasn't enough and he almost got me, then Deidara got away."

"They could have killed you! Both of you!"

"They almost did. I don't know what Kankuro told you, but he was struck by a poisoned blade. I got whacked around a little, but I managed... I got away."

Coward.

Fumiko could almost hear Gaara trying to calm down.

"Some people came out and got us, I think. I don't really remember. Suna had sent out a letter to Konoha by the time I woke up, like Temari told you earlier. Temari also told you it took three days for them to get here and then go find you. But she didn't... Kankuro almost died. The poison would have killed him had Sakura got here any later."

"Kankuro didn't..."

"While he was recovering, when I wasn't taking care of things here, I spent a lot of time on Suna's borders, waiting for... I don't know. I guess I thought that Uzumaki Naruto was going to save you and bring you right back home after killing the Akatsuki." Her smile wasn't really a smile. "I stayed by the pile of sand you used to save us and I just kept waiting... I tried to summon Shaapu and make him listen to me."

"Is that how you found us? Out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Yeah. It took a long time. Shaapu was irritable the whole time and tried to throw me off once or twice. But... I think he understood."

More pressure pressed into her face, and Fumiko realized that he had put his other hand on her eyes. From they way the bed shifted and creaked, she knew he was bowing his head over hers, probably bent with the rushing weight of what if's and what could've been's.

"Did you know... you could have died?" he said.

"I didn't really know anything then," she said. "Honestly, I was just pissed off."

Gaara snorted.

Slowly, Fumiko moved her hands up from her sides to rest on his. After a second she spent bracing herself, she gently pulled his hands down from her eyes. Fumiko found that she was right, because Gaara's face was right in front of hers. His cerulean eyes were stormy and shifting.

She kissed him.

...

~ When he was finally gone, Gaara dropped the brush onto the desk and groaned, burying his face into his hands. ~

...

Fumiko wasn't sure exactly when the mood changed. She only knew that she had kissed him to burn out the fear and the guilt in her stomach and replace it with happiness again. She hadn't broken away when she usually did and neither had he, and pretty soon some invisible barrier had been erased. Something had been tread across, something they'd touched upon but never explored- until now.

Gaara kissed her hard and tangled her hair in his hands, and she put her hands on his chest for support. They were dancing together, slowly, softly, the red with the brown, somber with smile, both fevered and possessed with the need to prove something, but timeless in the way that they did so. Fumiko, that he was there, Gaara, that he existed for her. Dancing, tongue in tongue, skin on skin.

Something dormant inside of her flared brightly, drowning out the terror and the sadness and the fear, lighting her up and burning away what little common sense Fumiko had in her head. She filled up with love and something hot, something dangerous, something happy.

When Fumiko felt cool fingers tugging at the hem of her shirt, she smiled against his lips and helped him to tug it off. Gaara barely seemed to hesitate at the sorry sight of her skin, thumbing his fingers across her arms softly. In a moment of complete unexpected confidence- no awkward teenager in sight- Gaara reached behind her and twisted at the strap of her bra. From the tearing sound, she knew he'd only managed to rip it off, but she didn't care.

Their kiss broke for just a second and Fumiko used that second to tug on his pants until he got the message and helped her kick them off. Another pair of PJ pants later, Fumiko realized that a lot of things were about to change, but then he pulled his shirt off and the thought disintegrated.

Everything was quickly turning to fire. He knew it, she knew it, they lived off it and accepted it and embraced it with a passion previously untapped. They loved, and the pair had no regrets.

During the night, many Love you's and you too's were said and sworn, life was proven and death driven off. A girl found her smile again and a boy finally proved his existence to himself. They cried each other and forgot about ninja and paint and the meaning of sorrow, and all of the words were true.

...

~ But it was such a strange, strange thought. ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH OHMYGOD I'M SO EMBARASSED AIIIEEE
> 
> T.T T.T T.T ;/./;
> 
> Ugh... and the funny thing is that I've read worse and it's barely even explicit... ehh... ehhhhhh...
> 
> I've not written this kind of stuff before as you can probably tell. T.T I just suddenly realized that, crap, I want them to have kids... also wanted it to be kind of sudden and kind of sweet and kind of desperate (ie, the above paragraph) 
> 
> I'M SORRY IF I OFFENDED ANY OF YOU GAH
> 
> The rest of the chapter I am very much in love with, although I'm sure more of you are mad at me for the feels in it XP It was easy to write, which is always a good thing, because it means it's a flowing development, like what she's actually feeling and not what I had planned ahead of time. You guys have no idea how many scenes I've written that I couldn't put in the story because it no longer fit the development...


	7. Love

...

~ Fukuda liked to think. In fact, he probably thought way too much, about too much. ~

...

When Fumiko finally woke up, it was slowly, and to the sound of angry knocking.

She smiled slightly, caught in the throes of a fading good dream, and glanced over to see Gaara, still sleeping soundly.

I must have woken up early today, she thought. He's still here...

But then she realized with mild confusion that there was light streaming through the windows. So Gaara was late? No, that wasn't right. He barely slept, let alone sleeping in. But then why... Fumiko shifted, yawning, but stopped when she felt a weight on her stomach. Quizzically she rose up the blanket and realized Gaara's arm was flopped across her body in sleep.

And that there was nothing on her stomach underneath it.

Because they were naked.

"Oh," Fumiko breathed. A grin slowly twitched across her lips, easy and content.

She felt warm inside as she remembered. Warm and safe and comfortable, with a spot of coolness across her belly underneath the sweltering blankets. Already the room was hot from the sun. There was sand in strange places, like grit in the sheets, in her hair, it was even in her mouth.

Someone was still pounding on the door, cursing loudly. Kankuro, maybe? Fumiko was still a bit too asleep to really focus. Carefully, so as not to wake Gaara up- although he must have been really passed out not to hear Kankuro's irritated bawling outside their door- she removed his arm and swung her legs over the side of the bed, yawning.

She rubbed her eyes. "Just a sec."

More muttering, but the pounding stopped as she slid carefully to the ground, sifting through the sand and the- the clothes; Fumiko smiled again- to find her prosthetic, which must have been pushed off the wall. "Is Gaara in there? He's so late for the briefing today it's not even funny."

"Just a sec," Fumiko repeated, finding her sock and pulling it over her stump.

"Well hurry up! The council's pissed at me."

She finally brushed her hand across metal and pulled it out by the hooked bottom, falling back onto her butt again and pushing it against the sock.

Standing, she realized she had an entirely new problem on her hands: she was still undressed. Fumiko dropped back to the floor again, realizing that she couldn't find her shorts and nothing she had shirt wise would be big enough to cover her without her having to go through her drawers and getting dressed for real and Kankuro was starting to bang on the door again-

She grabbed Gaara's black pants, scrambling back to her feet again and pulling them on, barely managing not to fall over in her haste. Luckily they were elastic with little strings, like sweatpants, or they would've fallen off completely.

On her way to the door Fumiko bent down and grabbed her bra, which had somehow ended up a good few feet away from the bed, and tried to clip it on, only to discover the clip was gone. The two ends of it were torn. So instead she put it on sideways and tied it, then spun it around.

Fumiko didn't realize until she was reaching for the doorknob that she was still indecent in just her tied bra and an oversized pair of pants. So she grabbed one of her spare brown cloaks from the stand beside the door, held it over her chest with one hand like a blanket or a sheet or something, then opened the door.

She wiped her mouth to try and rid it of some of the sand before she spoke. "What'd you say about a meeting?"

The first thing he said was, "Whoa, Fumiko, I didn't know you got hurt so bad. You should really get those bruises checked out or something."

"I'm fine." Fumiko pointed backwards over her shoulder. "Gaara's sleeping, do you want me to wake him up?"

"Yeah, please d-..." Kankuro flushed. "... Are those Gaara's pants?"

"Yeah. Why?"

He seemed to notice her bare arms and shoulders then. The red stain in his face spread down his neck, and his eyes looked like moons they were so wide. "Are you wearing anything under that?"

"My bra."

Kankuro was silent then, staring at her in almost total disbelief. The silence was so compressed and thick she wanted to get a pin to see if it would pop. Fumiko smiled a little bit, still blissfully content and warm from the sunshine in the air. "Do you want me to get-"

"No! No, that's fine!" Kankuro spluttered, raising his hands slightly and waving them about in front of his chest.

"Are you sure? 'Cause it'll only take a-"

"NO! I mean, no, Fumiko, that's cool, I'll just tell the council he's... sleeping."

Kankuro hurried away before Fumiko could get another word out, mumbling to himself incoherently before disappearing around the curve of the hallway. Fumiko looked after him for a few moments after he was gone, then shrugged and closed the door.

She dropped the cloak back onto the stand beside the door, then went and curled back onto the bed again without bothering to take off her prosthetic. She snuggled back under the blankets, wondering wistfully if she could get a few more hours of sleep. Maybe twenty minutes later, when closing her eyes didn't work at all, she opened them again.

Fumiko had seen her best friend sleep- like, really sleep- maybe three times in her entire life. Other then that, it was restless dreaming, resting barely underneath active consciousness- during which she had to stand guard to prod him awake the second he started to moan- or meditation, which wasn't really sleeping, just not thinking.

It was nice. Gaara never really looked peaceful. Even in meditation his expression was a concentrated one. When he slept with Shukaku inside of him, his face had usually twisted or been swirling anxiously, jumpy. And his waking face was so withdrawn, so hidden away, so guarded. Gaara, in neither his posture nor his expression, ever gave anything away.

But now he was just sleeping, and his red hair was tousled; cheeks flushed slightly from the warmth of the blanket, although Fumiko knew that if she reached out and poked his cheek it would still be cool. The kanji above his left eye was slightly faded. His lips were parted just slightly, and Gaara had one hand halfway under his head on top of the pillow. She had been wrong before, seeing his dead body- death was not like sleep, not at all: calm and peace were two very different things.

Her fingers itched for something to draw with- she really needed to get a sketchpad or something- but she stayed where she was for almost an hour, just watching.

Then her stomach growled, and she nearly choked trying not to laugh.

Sighing, Fumiko sat up again. She cast one more long glance at Gaara, his face, the pale bare curve of his shoulders and his chest where the blankets had pulled away with her body, his arms, one neatly up against his stomach where she had put it, the other still tucked up underneath his cheek. He was lying on his side, barely curled.

She considered waking him up, but decided in the end to let him sleep as long as possible. He certainly needed it.

So she slid silently out of bed again, padding over to the closet. She considered the sleepshirt drawer again, but then realized that there was no pain- no pain for Chiyo-baa-sama, no pain for Gaara. Fear, and guilt, but not pain anymore.

Her fingers slid off the handle, and she reached instead up from the drawers to the clothes hanging in the rack. Fumiko pulled down one of her white turtlenecks and slipped it on slowly, careful of her bruises, which, somehow, hadn't hurt at all last night. The turtleneck covered the bruise on her throat and chest and ribs, but not those on her arms- and she almost thought she looked a little bit like Mai, who wore short sleeves to bear her wounds like badges.

Fumiko had always wore long sleeves for a couple of reasons. One, so she didn't get paint all over them. Two, because she always wore a cloak anyway, and it would be super hot to have a cloak and a long sleeved shirt on. And three, because she liked the feel of things: the wind, the heat, the stinging sand, bumping Gaara's shoulder, cool paint, cold surfaces like metal or her countertop back at the gallery.

She pulled on panties and her black shorts, slipping on her blue shinobi sandal by leaning up against the wall of the closet and almost falling over on her butt, but she caught herself before she could tumble. Then she made her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

She blinked at her reflection. Without her cloak, it really did look more like she was showing off her battle wounds. She looked bigger somehow, less childish. And her hair looked different, too; longer now that it wasn't blending in.

She brushed her teeth, found the brush and combed out her messed up hair.

Quickly she penned out a note on the back of a paper she swiped from Gaara's desk and taped it to the door.

Gaara was still asleep when she finally left, grabbing her medical pack and her sheath from the hooks on the stand next to the door, draping them over her shoulders. Honestly, she didn't even know where her satchel was- she had lost it somewhere between waking up in the hospital after her fight with Sasori and throwing up in Kankuro's hospital room. She knew this because she had this vivid-clear memory of wiping her mouth outside in the hallway of the hospital, looking down at her lap, and saying nothing.

Maybe she hadn't even had it when she woke up in the hospital. Maybe it was out buried in the desert, ripped to shreds or disintegrating under the sand next to her pieces of a walnut charm. Fumiko couldn't remember.

She shook her head, pondering that day a day out from home in the desert, and closed the door behind her.

...

~ He had always been that way; over-analyzing and fearing the worst in everything. ~

...

Fumiko had something of a hunch that no one would come looking again for Gaara, at least not for another few hours if Kankuro had anything to say about it. She was more awake now than she had been before, and although she wasn't really embarrassed, she did realize that maybe she should've used a little more tact than 'my bra.'

Not that it really mattered. There was a pleasant hissing sound as she flipped on the water. She knew the spout would only last for fifteen seconds, as per water rationing suggested, and wouldn't flow again for another five minutes, so she wasted no time in sticking in the pot to fill. Fifteen seconds was more than enough.

It was funny. A month ago she'd decided to make salted tongue and gizzard, and it was still all in the fridge, the tongue covered in salt and cinnamon and cloves. By all rights it should have been shriveled, but it looked like the maids and servants had taken care of it, washing and reapplying for the entire month they shouldn't have been in the fridge.

These two tongues she pulled out. She had never quite gotten used to the feel of handling cow tongues, but Gaara liked them, so she made a face and just went with it. It already looked like the sun was pretty high up- so, brunch. It wasn't totally unacceptable that she was making tongues and gizzards for breakfast.

Saying that in her own head gave her pause. What a weird sentence.

She dropped the tongues into the pot to soak and set a timer for an hour, then got to work on the gizzard part, mixing vinegar and sugar and sesame oil and Soya sauce and other things in a bowl, until it all crumbled to a nice brown glaze spotted with little seeds of chopped garlic. She had discovered over time that making the tongue salty and the gizzard spicy actually made the food easier to handle- not that she was eating any this time. But Gaara seemed to like it.

The entire searching, cutting, washing, shaking, adding, mixing process of it took her almost ten minutes, so she was able to fill up another pot immediately and set it on the stove to boil, putting the bowl of chopped raw chicken gizzard chip-things beside it on the counter.

Now there was nothing to do but wait and stare at the pot until it boiled. About twelve minutes later, she disproved the old saying about staring at boiling pots and added the gizzards, capping it with the lid to trap the steam and quickly twisting off the flame to let it sit. She glanced at the timer for the soaking tongue- forty five minutes left. Ten minutes on the gizzards, so she made a mental note to pull them out at T-minus thirty five minutes.

She set about filling another bowl with water but left it on the counter. It needed to be ice water for the gizzard, but she didn't want to put ice in it before at least another five or six minutes ticked by, so the ice wouldn't melt. They didn't have a lot of ice. Actually, maybe it would be better just to put the bowl in the icebox until it was time...

Fumiko slid the bowl into the icebox, situated it carefully and spinning it into the ice so it wouldn't spill, then closed it.

She pulled up a chair and sat back, breathing out a loud, contented puffing sigh.

The cool thing about cooking was that you forgot about everything else. Even when it was second nature to make certain things, to the point where she didn't even have to read the labels on the seasoning anymore, it was still kind of zen, kind of peaceful, kind of easy.

She wondered if Gaara was awake yet. Probably not- he would have at least come looking for her, especially if he remembered what had happened the previous night right away. Fumiko didn't know if this heavy sleeping thing was going to be a permanent thing, then dismissed the thought. He was just re-regulating his circadian patterns. Eventually he would probably be a light sleeper again.

The timer caught her eye with thirty minutes left. Fumiko pushed back to her feet, pulled open the icebox, and took out the bowl, closing the box again with her foot and plopping it down on the counter.

She heard a yawn behind her as she transferred the gizzards from the still-steaming pot water to the freezing bowl water and glanced back over her shoulder to find Temari, just waking up.

"Good morning," she greeted. "Want me to put on some coffee?"

"Yes, please," she groaned, then stopped mid-complaint. "... Uh, are you feeling better now?"

"Very," Fumiko said, sticking the bowl into the refrigerator.

Twenty five minutes left on the timer. Fumiko pulled out the coffeemaker and a stack of paper filters from the cupboard next to the stove. It was a clunky, trustworthy old machine that had probably been in the Tower's kitchen since coffeemakers were invented. Temari wouldn't let them replace it.

As she hunted through the pantry for coffee grounds, Temari said, "It's nice to see you smiling again. And cooking. I missed breakfast."

"Me too." Fumiko stood up on the tiptoes of her one foot, stretching to knock down the grounds.

"Sorry, Kankuro's used to you making a pot in the morning. When he does it he puts it really high."

"'S okay," she said. Her flicking fingers finally bumped it so it tilted over the edge of the wooden shelf and into her waiting hands. They smelled strong, like coffee grounds often did, even through the container. "I don't mind. Why are you just now waking up?"

"Because it's Saturday and I don't have any missions?"

"Good point."

"Well, how long have you been up?"

"I dunno. A couple of hours, I guess."

"Really?" Temari sounded surprised. "It's noon. Even when you were sleeping sort of regularly you never slept past seven or eight... I would have thought you would sleep through the rest of the week."

"Kankuro was banging on the door. I don't know if that woke me up or if it was just good timing."

"Kankuro was banging on your door?" Temari demanded. "Wait, was Gaara sleeping, too?"

"He was out completely. I think he's still asleep, actually." Fumiko twisted the settings on the coffeemaker. It started to hum and then drip into the coffeepot. While she waited for the rest of the timer to tick out, Fumiko dumped the chicken gizzard pot water into the sink, then stuck the pot in the dishwasher- washing dishes was too hard with the water limits. The washing machine was designed to hold pots and dishes alike.

"So he was being a jerk and trying to wake you both up, after you haven't slept in like a month unless you were unconscious and Gaara's barely even been able to sleep an hour in his entire life?"

"Uh... yeah, I guess so."

"Why that little..."

Fumiko puttered around the kitchen for a few more minutes, wiping down the counters with dry cloths and double checking to make sure the fires were out on the stove, filling the pressure cooker with water and plugging it in despite the fact that she wouldn't need it until the timer dinged. Then she caught the last of the spray of tap water in two glasses and dragged her chair back over to the table, where Temari had already sat down.

"Thanks," she said warmly as she took the glass of water, calmer now.

"No problem," Fumiko said, then tilted back her glass and took a gulping swallow.

"Just out of curiosity, how'd you get him to back off? If Gaara's still sleeping, I mean." Temari to a casual sip of water, relaxing back into her chair. The coffeemaker dinged in the background, but Fumiko just finished her drink and wiped her mouth before putting the glass down on the table.

"Oh... uh, Kankuro realized I was wearing Gaara's pants, and then-"

Temari spewed water all over her and the tablecloth.

...

It had taken him way too long to plan anything out- where or what to eat, which essay topics to pick for the short responses on exams, the shortest distance to get somewhere. You would think his best subject was math, but it wasn't, because there's was always that uncertainty that he had gotten the wrong answer- and then he never finished his tests in time. ~

...

Gaara woke up with a jolt like an electric shock for no apparent reason, considering that he'd dreamed absolutely nothing at all. Or perhaps that was the reason- it was almost, almost like being dead, which was so bizarrely strange it was odd.

Of course his mind was going haywire- he was a ninja. Ninja usually woke up aware of their surroundings and their sense of time, unless they were Genin, stupid, or Naruto. Oh Kami. He hissed air through his teeth in shock and disbelief. Goddamn. That actually happened.

Then he realized Fumiko wasn't there with him as he turned his head and almost passed out again.

"Shit," he cursed, and almost fell out of the bed. For some reason his pants weren't where he'd left them, and a bit of confused searching turned them back up in the closet of all places. He hurriedly pulled them on, not bothering to find clean ones, and threw on a casual red shirt before stumbling back out into the room and reaching for the door.

Then he paused.

Making breakfast. I'll be in the kitchen. Love you

-Fumiko

Gaara sighed and banged his head against the door with a cross between a laugh and a groan.

...

~ Asking out a girl had taken him three years, and even then all his plans had blown up in his face and went off the tracks, but isn't that why he liked her, in the first place? She tended to just do things, albeit quietly. ~

...

Temari had left shaking her head, cold mug of coffee in hand. As she did, Gaara came in, making way for Temari and holding open to door. His older sister didn't even really appear to notice, muttering and rubbing her face, or Fumiko was sure she would have bolted.

The tongue was in the pressure cooker now, but the Gizzards were probably cold enough.

Gaara sat down at the table and said, "Hey."

"Hi," Fumiko said happily, tugging open the fridge door and pulling out the bowl and the sauce. She set about draining from the water away. "I guess you slept pretty good, huh? It's, like, one thirty."

"I had a meeting today, didn't I?"

"Yeah, Kankuro came to get you. But then he left." Fumiko grinned slightly, tipped the gizzard peices onto a plate, then poured the sauce over it. "I feel better, too. I'm not sure exactly how long I slept though."

She grabbed a fork and knife from the drawer and the plate from the counter and headed back to the table. It was a pretty big table, considering that some of the staff ate here throughout the day as well as the Kazekage and any of his family. She wasn't sure what it was made out of- oak, maybe? Or pine wood? Either way it was almost scarily smooth, which was why they had the suna-yellow tablecloth on top.

"Thank you- wait, you made this? For breakfast?"

"For brunch," she corrected.

"You seem happy," Gaara said. His eyes pinballed everywhere but at her and his smile was a little twitchy and nervous like it would start steaming, but it was a smile nonetheless. He wasn't quite unsure, just embarrassed.

And she really was. Sure, it was probably because of the buzz in her veins and the excited flush in her cheeks, and yeah, maybe she wouldn't be as happy tomorrow or the rest of whenever. She probably wouldn't ever be as happy again as she was right now, in this moment, in the kitchen with Gaara after the worst and best night of her life.

But that didn't matter right now, did it?

"You do too," she said. "There's cow tongue in the pressure cooker."

Gaara's smile twitched a little wider. "When you say it like that, I sound like a freak."

She tilted her head to the side and grinned. "We're both freaks."

Fumiko sat down and reached across the table for the bowl of fruit, nabbing a peach from underneath the apples. They ate for a while in silence, and then Fumiko had to go for the napkins by the stove because her brunch was getting all over her chin. The movement seemed to jolt her friend's thoughts, because he started tapping his fingers against the table.

"So... I, uh..."

Fumiko hummed to herself, throwing away the napkin and hobbling back to the table without sitting down. "Thank you, Gaara."

"F-for what?"

She poked his kanji, then leaned down slightly and kissed his cheek before sliding away again as the pressure cooker bawled. "For last night."

"Uh! O-oh?"

There was already a cutting board on the counter, so she just pulled out a pair of tongs and carefully spooned them out onto the plastic. They were hot, really hot, so she just left them there and turned back to face him, leaning back against the granite countertop, tongs still in hand. "Yeah." she said. "I remembered a lot of things. It was..." she paused. "Nice."

"You- you don't seem embarrassed. O-or upset at all..."

"Should I be?" Fumiko chewed on her bottom lip, suddenly, inexplicably concerned. "Wait, are you?"

"No! I mean, uh, no." Gaara tried for a smile. It was nervous and embarrassed and flighty, cute like all of his anxiety smiles, like the way had when they were little, like when he'd walked in on her almost naked, like when she'd kissed him for the first time- and all the times after that. Fumiko relaxed, and the bad feeling vanished just as quickly as it'd taken root.

"Oh." Fumiko puffed out a breath to blow the bangs away from her eyes, then smiled. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

Gaara picked at his plate without really looking at it, then put the fork down and breathed a really big sigh, running his hand through his hair. "This..." he started uncertainly. "This doesn't... change anything, does it?"

"I dunno," she said. "Maybe. Does it?"

Yes? No? It felt different, easier, but at the same time it didn't feel different at all, like the first time they'd kissed. Kami, that seemed like it had happened a thousand years ago, when they were both just kids. Except they were both just kids. Gaara, she realized, had turned sixteen sometime during his death, and Fumiko was only a month behind him. They were kids.

But somehow that made it a little less confusing. They were just kids- kids with grownup responsibilities pretending to be grownups. That was it and that was all. It didn't really change them. But there was still that pesky guilt stuck in her navel- something she shouldn't have to be dealing with.

Something she didn't want to deal with.

Gaara had opened his mouth and was about to speak, but Fumiko beat him to it. "Gaara, I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"When I went out with Kankuro..." Suddenly her mouth went a little dry. "When I..."

Gaara pushed his chair back, concerned. "Fumiko?"

"No, hold on." Fumiko gripped the countertop behind her. "I want to tell you."

"Tell me what?" Now Gaara stood, food forgotten entirely. Not that she was much better, with the probably cold tongue behind her on the cutting board. He didn't look embarrassed anymore. "What's wrong?"

Fumiko didn't usually plan things. She didn't really see the point. Events, yeah, and parties, but not actual real life things and occurrences. She didn't really see the point in it, since things usually turned out differently no matter what you planned. But she had planned this probably a hundred ways since waking up. Of course, now that she was actually looking at him looking at her with those concerned eyes, every planned word stuck to the back of her teeth.

Instead she just detached herself from the counter and switched her clutching hands to the strap of her medical pack, kneading at the fabric. Faux leather, maybe? It seemed a bit too soft to be any kind of leather, even fake leather, but she supposed that either way she played with it so much it would have softened by now. Fumiko limped back over to the table, touching Gaara's arm before easing back down in her chair.

In her mind she was thinking that this was a horrible time for this. If Gaara wasn't upset then he was happy, and she was happy, but there was just this thing inside her that she thought maybe she could bring up later when it wouldn't mess up the warm glow in her chest, but then again, plans never really did work out.

Uncertainly, Gaara sat back down. But he pulled his chair closer to hers as he did so. "Fumiko, are you sure you're not-"

"No," she said. Sugar, she needed to just spit this out so he would stop thinking it was his fault. Although, knowing him, he probably still would. Her heart was scared he would be angry, but logically, her brain knew he wouldn't care. It was strange, because fear and logic really didn't go together at all. "I really am happy, Gaara."

"You don't look happy," he said.

"Well, that's because..." she thought for a second. "Uh, because I'm nervous."

Well. There went that.

"Nervous about what?" Gaara pursed his lips, and she saw the sudden thought flash across his face. "Y-"

"Not that!" Fumiko said hurriedly, but she couldn't help the smile that twitched across her face. Although, Fumiko hadn't even thought about not using any kind of protection... "It's actually about me and Kankuro's fight. You know, with Sasori and Deidara?"

"What?" Now Gaara looked confused. "What about it?"

Her words were stuck again. What she wanted to say- Well, we were fighting and Deidara was leaving with you and I was poisoned so I couldn't move anyway but I still think I should have done something to save you but I saved myself instead?- sounded really stupid. I could've gotten Deidara again? I should've held them there longer so that Baki's assault squad could save you?

Even though the squad hadn't been there for hours after she had passed out.

Even though a squad like that was nothing to Gaara and therefore nothing to two S-ranked criminals who had managed to take him down.

Even though, even if she had caught Deidara in a final Genjutsu, Sasori would have cut her head off and Gaara would have died anyway.

There had been only one way out of that situation, but it seemed like there should've been another one, like there should've been a thousand other ways to go about it than to flop around like a dead fish and use Gaara's power to save herself.

She had, quite literally, gotten him killed, however indirectly. It was just dumb luck and Uzumaki Naruto and Chiyo-baa-sama that fixed her mistake.

Fumiko wondered suddenly if any of her chakra was inside of him- from before, when Chiyo-baa-sama had saved him. Hers and Uzumaki Naruto's and Granny Chiyo's. Or was it just energy and not necessarily chakra itself that had revived him?

"Fumiko?" Gaara murmured, and she blinked before realizing that she had just been staring at his chest from probably four or five minutes without saying a word.

"Right, right." She tugged down on the possibly-faux-leather strap. "Sorry, I was thinking."

And then she went ahead and told him everything she had wanted to say despite how stupid it sounded. It didn't really matter- a lot of people thought she was stupid anyway. Fumiko suspected that even Gaara on some level thought she was, in some ways, although he probably saw it more as a quirk than anything else.

In order to tell him what she was thinking, she had to tell him what had happened, from tracking him down to fighting with a kunai to using her Genjutsu to almost getting cut in half at least three or four times. The tail, which Gaara finally recognized in her bruises from all the reports on Sasori of the Red Sand.

Telling him what happened ended up taking longer than telling him what was wrong, because he kept interrupting with questions and exclamations and getting-up-to-pummel-Kankuro's. When she finally finished, he was practically twitching, which was almost hilariously contrasted with his stony-faced expression.

So she had ruined it. Oh well. But maybe his was like hers, and why she wasn't crying- because she was so happy and she wanted to get rid of this little part that wasn't, or at least push it away to whatever part of her brain held that kind of stuff without bothering her.

"Okay," Gaara said through his teeth. "So."

It didn't look like he quite knew what to say, either, and she wasn't even done yet.

"You needed me," she said at last. Fumiko felt like that entire speech had been one big huge sigh, or maybe a yawn. A hiccup that felt much better out than in."And I didn't help you."

"No," Gaara said and touched the back of her hand with his fingertips. If he'd looked her in the eye when he said what he was about to say, then it would have been something out of a cheesy romance book or movie. But this wasn't a story, it was real, and he was looking at their hands. "I need you, now."

Fumiko's breath caught. "Gaara-"

"What you did," he said, "was incredibly, unbelievably stupid. Never do that again."

Fumiko paused. After a second she started to grin. "No promises."

...

~ Surprisingly, the only thing he didn't over analyze was proposing. But he hadn't exactly gotten the chance to start planning it at all- because she dragged them both to a jewelry store and made him help pick things out for wedding rings. ~

...

Gaara, sadly enough, had to go to work as soon as they finished eating. (Fumiko had cereal.) By 'work' Fumiko assumed he meant try to explain away his strange disappearance from work that morning, or else he could easily have missed a day and just stayed up later tomorrow. Luckily for Gaara, he had a pretty decent excuse- I was actually sleeping for the first time in, oh, fifteen years.

Gaara hadn't really helped her clean up, mostly because he had no idea how to go around the kitchen, but also because Fumiko had made it in the first place and thus hadn't let him try. She'd finished cleaning up everything almost two hours ago, but she had nothing better to do, so she'd mixed up a quick few batches of cupcakes to make the kitchen smell good, pulled out instant frosting, ate two or three or six of them on her own, and then set about cleaning the kitchen purely because she was bored and happy enough not to care.

Oh, the servants complained, but they were used to her erratic cleaning sprees by now. She'd handed them cupcakes and given all three of them the day off. It wasn't like anyone would really notice if they didn't clean anything for one day. How dirty could things get every day, anyway?

It felt so strange. Her life had been a roller coaster for the last entire month. Most of it had been one big upside down corkscrew- you can't even see you're going so fast, and you can't even get enough sense to do anything but scream your head off and puke. But then there was a gentle slope- excitement, happiness, and a little bit of fear- and then a drop.

Fumiko didn't know if it was over or not. But she did know that she was cleaning out the stove, which just seemed o absurdly normal after... everything that had happened. Maybe this was the abrupt stop before getting off. But it seemed crazy that just yesterday she'd been painting with black and now she was humming to herself and scrubbing old food off the stove.

She was halfway inside the stove, wiping it down, when she heard voices.

"Kami, I've never been more embarrassed in my entire life," Kankuro groaned. She could hear the creak of the door as it swung open. "It was so weird."

"Are you sure?" Mai didn't sound too impressed. "I'm sure you've done worse." A pause. "Hey, look, she's in the stove."

"What?" Another pause. "Oh, shit."

Fumiko crawled out, spidering over the stove lid to sit on the tile. Mai and Kankuro were both staring down at her. Mai had her fists on her hips and was grinning her trademark lazy grin. Kankuro, however, looked really different without his makeup or his cap, although he still wore the rest of his outfit. His expression looked a little flat and tired.

"Hi," she said.

Kankuro groaned, covering his face with one hand. "Oh Kami, it's happening again."

"Hey, Kankuro, are you okay?" Fumiko asked. Mai helped her heave to her feet. "You left really fast this morning. How'd the meeting go?"

Kankuro did't say anything, just sighed and moved on to the fridge.

"Don't worry," Mai said. "He's just a puss who didn't see it coming. How are you?"

Fumiko smiled. "Good."

"There's icing on your face."

"I made cupcakes."

"I see that." Mai barked out a laugh. "I met up with one of the guys who work here. He said you were acting like yourself again. Apparently everyone was worried about you, Fumiko-sama."

"Really?" Fumiko dropped the sponge on a burner, which probably wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done, but there as literally no chance of her accidentally turning on the flames. She stopped short of asking was I really acting that different?

"Yeah." Mai leveled her an almost serious glance. "So was I, for the record. I'm glad Gaara set you straight."

Kankuro retreated from the fridge with a handful of tupperware boxes tucked under his arm. He dumped them on the the counter on the other side of the kitchen area. As he did so, he muttered, "So that's what it's called now, huh?"

"Oh, shut up, Baka-Kankuro," Mai called back over her shoulder. "Although I have to say, I didn't expect that."

"Really?" Kankuro grumbled, pulling the lids off and tossing them onto the counter. From what she could smell, Fumiko guessed that he'd just pulled out a bunch of spaghetti and pizza slices. "You don't seem awfully surprised."

Mai grinned a shark grin. "Well, not this soon, anyway."

Fumiko laughed. "Me neither, to be honest. Never even crossed my mind."

"I bet it didn't." Mai frowned slightly, bracing her hand against the counter next to the stove and tapping it with her fingernails. "Just to be clear, we're not telling dad, right? 'Cause Gaara has enough to deal with and so do you."

"Nope," Fumiko said firmly.

"I met the guy, by the way," Kankuro mused. "He really is a jerk."

"Kicked him through a wall, that's what," Mai scoffed, then blinked and craned her neck to look at him. "Hey, wait a second, did you ever get those repair people to fix my hallway?"

...

~ He had worried incessantly over the birth of both his baby girls, especially Fumiko's- such a small baby, and with all the complications that came with her condition. But Fumiko had turned out fine, as had his other little girl Mai- both like their mother, quiet but doing what they wanted. ~

...

For once, sitting down at his desk was a relief. That quick meeting between advisors who never seemed to stray very far from the meeting room had gone on for what seemed like hours. Well, it probably actually had lasted about an hour or two. Dodging questions from a bunch of haughty power-hungry Heads wasn't exactly Gaara's idea of fun.

And then immediately he chided himself. At least he was alive to feel irritation. He had a lot of other things- at least one thing- to feel perfectly happy about. It was a pretty good outcome, considering he had been dead a few weeks ago.

Gaara figured he might as well get a few things taken care of before retiring for the day. Paperwork like this wouldn't take him all that long, anyway. Considering that he had missed an entire two days' worth of work, this wasn't too bad at all.

There were still a lot of citizen complaints and concerns. A lot of people were scared. There were even letters from other villages- Grass and the Leaf and a few of the smaller, non-shinobi settlements scattered throughout the Land of Wind- that were chattering about the new threat Akatsuki that actually they should have probably worried about a little earlier.

He wondered what Fumiko was doing as he flipped through the mess. If she wasn't here, than she was probably with someone. Gaara had a hunch she wasn't going to be in her studio for a while, and made a metal note to ask her about the clouds.

According to the reports from various ninja, the only confirmed death from the two Akatsuki members was the red haired one- the one he hadn't fought. Which was bad in it's own right, because the bastard he had fought in the sky had been cocky as hell and Fumiko had a point in saying he would be furious when he found out the Kazekage wasn't dead.

Gaara was confident that he could defeat the bomb user. Creating that shield had taken almost more energy than he had, and moving it had been even worse. If he hadn't had to do that... Deidara had been weak as well. That fight was a close loss. But a close loss had gotten him killed, quite literally. It had gotten a lot of people killed, with a lot of close scrapes for other people he cared about.

That nuke-nin had almost destroyed his entire village. His home.

And no matter what he told everyone else, Gaara knew that if that same fight played out again it would have turned out the same way. Because when the choice was between the lives of every person in the entire Sand village and the life of one S-ranked terrorist, there wasn't a choice at all. So if it were to happen again... it would be trouble.

He could fall now. Bang his elbow on the doorjamb. Get goddamn papercuts. Punches and attacks and obvious threats, his sand still blocked, but it was slower, more sluggish to respond. That he could control his sand at all was a mystery. Residue of Shukaku's power? Gaara didn't know, and neither did anyone else. But he definitely wasn't at his strongest right now.

...

~ "Daddy," little six year old Fumiko drawled, tugging at his pants, drawing his attention away from the photo album. In her little hands she held ratty old bean bags. "Daddy, play Otedama with me! Please, please, pretty please?" ~

"You can visit Gaara later," Mai whined.

"Why do you want me to learn affinity jutsus so bad?" Fumiko asked quizzically. "I know Genjutsu and Taijutsu."

"It's better to learn something," her sister insisted. "Especially you- you're so weird. Nobody expects you. When you're not wearing that staff thing on your back, and even when you do, you look like nothing. Teeny tiny muscles like a startoff Genin. You're from Suna, so they don't expect you to know Genjutsu or Suiton, especially Suiton."

Mai nodded. Fumiko pursed her lips.

"So, like... nobody thinks I'm a threat? Or, they think I'm a threat for the wrong reasons?"

"Exactly. If anything they'll think you're like Temari with a Wind Release nature. It's happened to me before, too. They'll be ready for a wind release, or a seal user, or a poison specialist." Mai tapped her temple. "Planning kills. And anyway, you need to stay off your feet for a while. You look like shit still."

"I can do this sitting down?"

"Of course you can do this sitting down," Mai moaned. "It's better to sit down. Actually, this is right up your alley, Fumiko. It's all about concentration and meditation. I hated it. At least, I hated it until I could breathe fire. You gotta respect being able to breathe fire."

They were sitting in her bedroom. Not Mai's- their father had the uncanny ability to pick bad times for fights, and more likely than not Fumiko would accidentally say something, so she didn't really want to go to her house yet. No, they were in her and Gaara's bedroom. Mai was very poignantly not sitting on the bed, which had at some point been stripped and new sheets and blankets- or maybe they were the same ones just washed, she couldn't tell- and was insteaad perched on Gaara's spinny work chair facing backward.

"Who taught you fire release?" Fumiko thought alud.

"My t- my sensei," Mai said smoothly, and Fumiko thought that she must've missed something important because-

"Otokaze hasn't taught you nature releases," she said. "I asked him about it before you left. He wasn't planning on trying to even identify your natures until the chuunin exams."

"Eishi knows Wind release."

"Temari taught him that." Fumiko chewed her lip for a second, thinking back to the long period of time she'd gone missing before graduation. She couldn't remember if Mai had known Katon before she left. "Wait, Mai, does this have anything to do with sha-"

"Wow, you really are back to normal," Mai said dryly. "But right now I want to talk to you about Suiton."

It was always easy to sense when and when not to push Mai's words. This was definitely one of those not times, but still, now she wondered what else had happened while she had been freaking out. "Okay. How do I do nature transformation?"

"It's, uh... it's actually different for every nature, I think. T- Sensei said it was all about visualization. Like, to think of your chakra as it's nature." Mai frowned. "Wait, how do you know you're suiton again?"

"I accidentally picked up a pile of chakra paper and it more or less dissolved."

"Of course you did." Mai sighed. "Anyway, like I was saying, it's all visualization. I always thought of my chakra like fire. Unless you're stupid, which you're not, you know that means we'll do yours with water."

...

Fukuda picked her up and swung her onto his lap. She shrieked happily. "Put me down put me down put me down!" ~

...

Fumiko knocked quietly on the door, even though she knew he was inside and that the doors were unlocked and that the sensory ANBU inside had probably already identified her chakra and so she wouldn't get attacked if she burst inside.

"Come in," Gaara said, and even through the muffle of the door she could tell he was distracted. Fumiko smiled, thinking that wow, everything had just fallen back into place, her cleaning the kitchen and him getting sidetracked at work so easily he stayed five hours instead of five minutes. Funny that they had thought anything would change.

"Hi," she said cheerfully as she shouldered the door open. In her arms she carried a tray with food and a travel mug of soda (because even though she could usually manage to make it up all those flights of stairs with trays of food it was just tempting fate to bring open drinks.)

Gaara jumped a little, then blinked up at her. "Oh. Hey. What've you got?"

"Marron Glace," she said seriously, carefully placing the tray with bowls of seafood egg drop stew and cucumber salads on a spot of desk that wasn't spread over with papers. "Dinner."

"Dinner?" Gaara's lips pursed. "Oh. Crap. Is it that late?"

"Later. But don't worry," she said with a laugh. "I was training with Mai anyway. It's almost nine."

"Oh," he said again, frowning. "Crap."

Fumiko grabbed a slice of cucumber with her fingers and munched it like a cookie, glancing over at Gaara's desk, which, predictably, was a mess. The urgency labels had decreased considerably since she'd worked his office. Gaara was wearing his hat haphazardly on his head, but the robes were nowhere to be found. He probably hadn't planned on being here long.

While Gaara dug into one of the egg drop bowls, Fumiko busied herself with reorganizing the debris all over the wood, clearing papers into piles and brushes into the pretty black rectangle of a shallow bowl sitting next to the ink, all the time nibbling on pieces of vegetables from her bowl without ever snapping her chopsticks apart. Slowly both bowls of soup vanished- she'd expected as much, they were salty- and the desk cleared away to reveal fine grained wood.

She sucked at some of the soda- cherry something if she had to guess, she hadn't looked at the label- and brushed the little brush hairs and slivers of dried ink across the desk and into the little trash can on the floor beside it, then rocked back into the stool. Gaara gently plucked it from her hand to take a sip.

Fumiko snapped her chopsticks, leaning across the desk and brushing her arm against his to stab the last piece of fish before Gaara could eat it. She stuck it in her mouth and smiled at him with her lips closed. He just sighed and pushed the bowl away before reaching up to straighten his hat.

It was peaceful for what seemed like forever, there in that warm room that smelled like sand, despite the fact that she could feel eyes on her back. Eating food and working, this was where they thrived. Or maybe stayovers, those were nice too. No... those were fun and this was calm.

After a while, Fumiko suddenly realized that Gaara was drooping.

"Ohmysugar," she said. "Are you tired?"

"No," he said shortly. "I slept last night."

"You are," she said, quirky smile pulling back her lips. She poked his shoulder. "You are tired!"

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Yes!

"Yes."

"No! I mean wait, yes!" Fumiko laughed so hard she snorted, then swept the bowls back onto the tray. Gaara was left holding a white travel mug full of dark red soda and a piece of cucumber in his hand. "C'mooon, let's go to sleep!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"No."

"No."

"Aw," Fumiko whined. "I thought that would work."

A little smile- a teeny tiny smile that she hadn't seen in over a month- stole onto his lips.

...

~ "Let's look at pictures instead, ne, Fumiko-chan?" ~

...

"Night, Gaara," Fumiko said, warm in her pj's, and reached over to pull out the light. Then she rolled back over to curl into her pillow, but before she could, she felt arms pull her closer. Just like they had the night before, only now her back wasn't to him. The black fabric of his shirt was cool-warm against her cheek, and she wondered if this was going to be a new regular thing now, this touching.

She found herself hoping it was.

"Goodnight, Fumiko," he said, and it was a rumble in his chest she could feel under her fingers. Fumiko smiled.

"Love you."

And in the darkness, to her surprise, she felt lips press to her hair for a moment before a hand tucked it under his chin. Gaara sighed, hand still touching her hair.

"You too."

...

~ Fumiko beamed, and the little bags tumbled out of her hands to the floor as she eagerly wiggled across his legs to see the album better. "Okay, daddy!" ~


	8. Fire

...

~ "Why- do you- have to antagonize- everyone?"

...

Mai wasn't a heavy sleeper. Well, she was if she was drunk, but that barely ever happened.

How could she be? Growing up in the house she grew up in. It wasn't like her dad ever woke them up, not on purpose anyway, but first she'd been scared of Gaara, and then scared of her dad, and for a while in between being scared and finding herself she'd slept about as much as a rabbit in coyote territory. By the time she'd actually grown a pair, well, she was training to become a ninja anyway, and it wasn't too much longer before she had joined ANBU's training program of hell.

ANBU. You didn't sleep there at all. It was more like you daydreamed just enough to get your body to respond, and even that was a test, designed to see if they could catch you off guard in your 'free' time. No, it was wake up before they scared the everloving shit out of you, or screw it and just train. Most of the time, she picked the latter option.

Of course, she didn't mind being a light sleeper. It was the trait of a good ninja, and anyway she didn't like sleeping, because dreams were unpredictable and you wasted time you could be spending training or trapping or eating. Maybe she was paranoid, but there was a reason for it. Six other kids had been kicked out of the program entirely, which of course meant they didn't remember anything about it or the scars that had suddenly popped up in their skin.

Mai herself had gotten out remarkably unscathed. All of her superficial wounds had healed except for the one gash down her left side, starting more or less at the base of her boob and dropping in a curved line almost all the way to her belly button. That had healed to a somewhat uneven, somewhat thick dark line that she'd almost stitched correctly.

In any case, she was a light sleeper, which meant that she always woke up at first light. The bright side was that she didn't need an alarm clock. The bad thing was that even when she didn't want to wake up- when she was having a dream or subconsciously remembered that she didn't want to do something- she did anyway.

She blinked blearily out the window next to her bed. It was still pretty dark outside, but the few spindly rays of light stabbing into her squinting eyes would grow bigger and bigger by the second, and within the hour, it would be bright in Sunagakure.

Mai sighed, let her head roll back to the pillow so she could see the ceiling. Closed her eyes because she had already memorized every crack and popcorn in the sand plaster. Her plain tan Suna-sand colored blanket was still useful; it wasn't hot yet.

Slowly, with an almost reptilian fluidity, Mai rolled her head to face the other side of her bed- the desk. It was a little higher than the mattress, but she could still see what she'd put on it in her mind's eye, and then in real life as she opened her eyes again. A single black strap hanging over the side to dangle in front of her face, and the tiny white porcelain triangle of an ear.

Today, today. She never marked off on calendars, but that didn't mean she didn't dread certain days.

Get out of bed, you big pussy.

Mai didn't really feel like moving.

Get out of bed or Captain-sama will totally have your ass.

Yeah. Captain-sama had specifically requested she do this, herself, and it wasn't like an ANBU member do be non-punctual. ANBU agents were always supposed to be everywhere at once, always. And she had to find her uniform pieces. She couldn't go to HQ for something like this dressed like Mitsuwa Mai with a Jackal mask.

Finally she heaved herself out of bed, groaning, wiping a hand down her face. She needed to shower, but now she didn't have time. Ponytail? Would have to do. Messy and sloppy, Squirrel-taicho would have said. Well, at least you're an assassin. They won't see it anyway.

Assassin in training, Taicho.

Same difference.

Mai snarled at herself. This was no time to be like this. She had memorized the formal rights from the book Captain-sama had provided her with, along with the worn, handwritten message penned into the top corner of that particular page: No emotion, no inflection, no humanity.

'No humanity' had always seemed to her a strange rule of Sunagakure's ANBU forces. Wasn't giving someone a funeral showing a humanity? Of course it was a funeral pyre, and the families would never know what happened to their husband or brother or son if they didn't know his profession before he died. But still, they could just burn him and dispose of the ashes without saying any words at all.

No humanity. Fair enough, though, Mai thought as she dug through her closet for the black half-sleeved crop-top jacket and fishnet and leather armor from her closet that made up the torso of her ANBU uniform. The same pants only looser and with pockets, inside both of which was stitched and inked with a seal for one of her swords, so she could fight with them but they weren't seen until the need arose.

No humanity. No Mai.

She changed quickly, pulling on her black gloves and strapping on her arm guards. Technically she was supposed to be in training for another year or two, depending on progress, but with the death of her taicho and her track record, Mai didn't know if Captain-sama would bother to put her on another training squad, or if he would just fledge her ANBU and not send her on solo missions for a while.

Before she left she sealed her swords into her pockets, leaving the sheaths and their belts on the floor where they lied, and picked up the squirrel mask like it would explode, tucking it under her arm like hers. There were pouches, two of them, on her back, attached to her pants, with kunai and razor wire and shuriken, as well as two soldier pills and a suicide pill in the compartment in the right ear of her Jackal mask, which wasn't strapped to her face yet, because even though it was early she wanted no one to see her with it on.

Her hair puffed like a scared cat's in it's ponytail, curling and waving with both bedhead and natural irritating bounce. Finally she left, not bothering to turn the lights off because they had never turned on. Best to slip out unnoticed- even her civilian father knew what ANBU wore, and so did her medic mother, they would ask questions about the issued arm guards and armor and the masks under her arm that, to nosy passersby or window-gawker rubbernecks too far away to see clearly, could be anything.

It wasn't like she didn't do it all the time anyway, they wouldn't be worried.

...

~ Mai grinned, flopping out on the grass. "Because they were wrong." ~

...

Walking through the streets with her hands shoved in her pockets, Mai felt distinctly uncomfortable without the heavy weight of her shoulder back or the kunai pouch on her leg or the touch of her raised-neck sleeveless top. This jacket and shirt and armor felt funny, and so did the cool air tickling the back of her neck, and it almost felt like her pants would fall off without the sheath belts.

Missions, she always wore this kind of stuff. Random trips to HQ she only put her hair up and her mask on, but usually, if she planned to go there, she changed. It was what you did. Only Captain-sama knew the faces underneath the masks. No one else- not even the Kazekage- was supposed to tell them apart.

Mai had no idea if Shorty-sama was able to pick her apart from other recruits. Maybe; not many people in Suna had hair like hers. But he'd never said anything about it, so she'd never asked. Maybe he knew who Taicho was. Had been.

Mai snorted, scuffing up a bit of sand with her foot. She really should shunshin, she was cutting close on time, but she didn't care. Yeah, and what would she do with that information, buy his wife some flowers? Whoops, sorry. Can't tell you where he went but you'll never ever see him again, lady.

If he even had a wife. Squirrel-taicho could be civilian for all she knew; or a Genin, or a Jonin. She knew his general height and body structure, unless he'd gone so far as to use some kind of impossible Genjutsu that for some reason she couldn't notice, but nothing else. Short black hair. Right handed. Good with battlefield medicine, something Mai had never had the patience for.

She was getting closer to the water towers; Mai could smell it on the air. She sighed, pulled one hand out of her pocket to straighten the upright collar on her jacket. It was already getting hotter and hotter, the sun burning fire into the air as it rose, topping the buildings with golden crowns of yellow and orange and bloodred. The clouds looked like murderers.

Well, that was morbid. Mai smiled with her teeth.

Was it wrong that she was happy? Well, maybe happy was the wrong word, because a lot of things were still scattered on the ground, a lot of things were still bloody. Then was it wrong that she was sad? There was really only one reason to be sad now. A lot of things to be angry about, but only one reason to be sad, and more to be happy.

Gaara was okay. Fumiko was okay again. The way it had happened might have been a little unorthodox, but it had worked like magic. Fumiko was still different. There was quietness in her that hadn't always been there, and she always wanted to train somehow. Even when her body stopped her- there was still a lot to heal physically, but aside from the little bit of change, everything seemed to have glued back together.

Kami, for a second... for a while she hadn't known what to think about her sister. She'd been dying inside, even when they'd gotten Gaara back. At least one of the bastard Akatsuki had been killed. Props to the pink haired medic Sakura, an Chiyo, for that, and for bringing Gaara back to life. Chiyo and Naruto for that.

And now it was okay. Except it wasn't, because she still felt wrong herself, and it wasn't even about Squirrel-taicho anymore. Well, it was; that was a part of it, and there was mourning, but there was something dark and scared growing inside her. Scared, of course, made her pissed, because that wasn't in her way. Mai didn't even have a ninja way, not really one she'd ever put into words: Don't die and don't lose, maybe.

But that was gone. In that time, awhile after Taicho's death and days after Gaara was gone, and Fumiko had thrown a plate of fruit dumplings at her head when she tried to make her eat instead of work, Mai had wondered if maybe she would actually die- something she never had never really thought about nor previously considered possible- and maybe if she should.

That was still there- why her, of all people? Her entire training unit- Squirrel-taicho, the captain, herself, and two other members, Lizard and Rattlesnake- had been killed, slaughtered like a bunch of first-year Genin, them and two other full units.

Her training team. Designed to keep her from killing herself or screwing up a mission.

The crazy thing- the hell of it- was that she was supposed to be there with them. No doubt she would have been destroyed just like her teammates. Her impatience to join the Chuunin exams was what had saved her. She was supposed to be there, destined to die, and she wasn't. Was that supposed to mean something? She didn't know.

Mai stopped. Sand dug over her toes.

She looked up at the huge tower. There were two, but it was the one on the left that held the secret entrance to HQ.

She sighed. Didn't really feel like running but had to get that jumpstart anyway, so she stepped inside and tied on her mask, gripping the other securely in her hand, before taking off at a dead run toward the pool and leaping from the edge, over the water.

Jackal hit the ground running at the bottom of the tube, slowing to a slow jog and then a walk.

People around her. Rabbit. Tortoise. Spider. They didn't whisper- ANBU members didn't gossip- but she could feel their eyes on her back through their eye-slits. Or, more accurately, she could feel their eyes on the mask in her hand. Jackal ignored them, slipping through the hallway. A funny thing about these halls: you never heard footsteps.

There was a morgue. She had declined Captain-sama's offer of visiting the bodies of her teammates. Too crude, too intimate to do in a quiet place like this, where you could hear even a breath in the silence, let alone crying, through a door, locked or not.

No emotion, no inflection, no humanity.

Training. There were thousands of training techniques that shut feelings down, tranquilized the killing pain of death. Nothing lasted forever, but it helped in situations like this, when she could walk coolly through a hallway full of nosy sonsofbitches waiting to see if the new recruit would lose her shit. Who knew what they were thinking- maybe the same things as her, might have should have didn't.

She almost hadn't been able to believe that they had a place for burning. If you started in the middle of the village- at the water towers- and kept on going straight left until you left the village, went another half mile and stopped, you might see a strange pipe sticking out of the ground. It looked, perhaps, like an old plumbing system. You had to know where to look, of course, it was surrounded by desert brush, but if you waited for the death of an ANBU, then you sometimes saw a curl of smoke steam into the sky.

There was an underground room with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape. Ventilation chambers in the walls to dispel the smell of burning human being. And Jackal knew very well what burning human being smelled like- she had already attended the funerals of Lizard and Rattlesnake. Captain-sama had been damned set on her herself running Squirrel's and had put it off until Fumiko was alright.

Which was creepy as hell, because that meant he knew who she was and what was wrong with her life. It was how she'd figured out that he knew who she was. Captain-sama probably knew them all. The day Fumiko had smiled again was the day Mai had gotten the notice with Squirrel-taicho's pyre details on it.

Fumiko and Gaara hadn't even gone public yet. Everything was really quiet about that. Probably Gaara's idea; he really did fluster much too easily for a Kazekage of Sunagakure. It wasn't like it mattered. But how did he know?

The ceremony room was big, with grey walls and grey floors and a permanent scorch mark in the center. They didn't have an incinerator, they had a table with dry date tree leaves and needleless cactai and brush. The table came to about the knee of a full grown man, short, made of some kind of sleek metal that didn't burn. It didn't matter that they would be able to pick his ashes apart from the leaves- it was all going to the same place anyway.

The desert.

Jackal- Mai- loved the desert. The desert was home. The desert was dangerous, but the desert could save her life if she was being pursued by anyone who didn't know it like she did. The desert was hot. It was wild. It wasn't meant to be a place to live, but Suna had carved it out anyway, had become a part of the terrain, a part of the desert.

She didn't know if she would ever look at sand quite the same way again after this was all over. They dropped it some distance away from the village, just scattered the ashes and left whatever jar they'd brought it in. It was miles and miles away from the village... but there were sandstorms. There was wind. What were the chances? Had she ever walked on a disintegration of some poor damned corpse?

She couldn't believe she was doing this.

The captain was already there, along with one or two other ANBU. Mai didn't know exactly how this worked, usually so far as she knew only people from your team went to your funeral, or an apprentice or taicho if she or he was still alive. She was pretty sure Squirrel-taicho's taicho was dead, she was his only student, an both of his squad members had died alongside him.

Maybe they knew him? Really knew him?

The body was already on the table. Jackal realized that she held his mask in her hand and all of her musings were useless.

She didn't know him.

He had a normal face. Slightly blunt nose, a widow's peak. Not a thin face and not a round one. There was stubble on his chin but no other hair on his face, and his black hair was cropped. Not a jonin, then. She knew most of the jonin. Perhaps a paper-pusher somewhere. Suddenly she wanted to know that he wasn't just a civilian.

Memorize it, she told herself. Memorize it, get Fumiko to draw it, get Gaara to-

"Jackal-san."

San. They didn't dare say chan.

Jackal didn't turn, kept her voice carefully dead. "Hai, Captain-sama."

"Are you ready?"

Asking her like he would let her go if she wasn't. Of course she wasn't. Who in the hell wanted to burn their teacher? Screw identities. He deserved to have his name somewhere. But ANBU didn't get headstones if they died in action.

I can't die for ANBU.

I can't do that to anyone.

"Hai, Captain-sama."

...

~ "What, and- you were right?" ~

...

The ceremony passed blurringly. Tie his mask on his face- she had to do that- talk somewhat about their achievements in ANBU without alluding to their other life- Captain-sama- say a few other things, blah-blah-blah- her again.

And then burning.

She had to do that.

"Katon," she said, palming together her hand seal. "Fireball jutsu!"

Making people burn other people. What was it, more training? She loved ANBU, the secretiveness of it, the darkness, the sneaking, the mystery. She loved being special, handpicked among her classmates for her prowess despite her crappy test scores. Screw test scores, it was field work that counted; none of those braniacs who couldn't set up ambushes during field training hadn't been contacted.

But there were some things she hated. Things that messed with her insides. Like this. Trying not to puke, roasting your taicho like a pig for supper, a good old fashioned barbeque with your friends milling around and sharing drinks.

She needed a drink. Something to take the heat sheen off the fire; that curling scent off her skin. His porcelain mask even burned, although it lasted as long as his bones, cracking apart and powdering. She watched because she could feel them watching her.

What the hell, she mused, is a person weak because they don't want to see someone burned?

The funny thing was that he'd been dead for over a month, somehow preserved perfectly by whatever medical crap Sunagakure had in secret, or maybe they just froze him and let his corpse thaw before the ceremony. So perfectly kept, only to burn. There was a dangerous side to fire. She played with it on a regular basis and enjoyed it, and she still would, but she would remember this, this biting of heat, this blackness on the short metal table.

Respect. Hah. Maybe. She'd signed something for it in the beginning. What would it be like to just stop going through life? Stop going to your favorite stores or eating your morning grapefruit, without going to training, sneaking into the Tower to talk to friends and family, without fighting with her dad and helping er mother, without hanging up more bags, or running through the desert, or yelling, screaming, arguing with Kankuro.

What would happen if Mai just... disappeared?

Would they search? Kankuro might, if he didn't know, which he didn't. Her Genin teammates would. Gaara wouldn't, and he wouldn't let Fumiko either even if he didn't tell her although he probably would- she could just imagine his pained sorry look. Like, sorry, Shorty-sama. Kankuro. Matsuri. Eishi, Shiragiku, Otokaze-sensei-

Stop it.

No humanity.

No humanity.

No humanity.

Fuck it, she thought as some random ANBU she didn't know, Mouse, scooped up the combined ashes of a dead person and the desert green-and-brown-ery. Fuck it, I have humanity, I'm Mai, and I'm Jackal, you bunch of bastards.

But they weren't bastards. Just a bunch of strong people in the shadows. Just a bunch of really damn strong shinobi.

Just like she would be someday. Maybe they were thinking the same thing- Hey, she's just a pipsqueak, why are you making her burn her taicho, don't you want her to be able to use fire? Hiding their humanity inside their skulls. Maybe it should be Show no emotion, show no inflection, show no humanity.

...

~ "As, a matter of fact, Eishi, I was!" ~

...

After dropping back to her house and scaring the crap out of her mother, changing, and restowing all of her ANBU gear back into the hidden floorboard in her closet (Cliche and predictable, but her parents nor her sister would ever be able to find it) Mai dropped her hair down and strolled back out onto the sandy streets.

Mai had to meet her teammates at the Tower to get a new mission. It was hard to plan around them, because was Captain-sama said jump you read his mind and jumped exactly as high as he wanted you to, but at the same time, nobody- even her sensei- could know on her team. So a lot of things went hand in hand- death and missions.

She'd barely used any of her chakra with her Katon technique. She was more than prepared for any mission they got.

About halfway there she spotted Shiragiku, of course heading the same way she was, towards the Tower, where some Chuunin would decide the least dangerous and most profitable mission request that they were qualified for. Mai's team was something of a piercing squad- Mai and Eishi and Otokaze taking on enemies from the front, Shiragiku in their midst, poisoning the water.

Which made them an ideal choice for anything that wasn't a tracking call, which they were still pretty damn good at, if she did say so herself.

"Yo," she said, sidling up beside her quieter teammate.

Shiragiku smiled slightly, nodding and holding up the hand that held his bag in greeting. Mai hefted her own green travel pack, glad to know she had access to everything inside. "Hello, Mai-chan. How are you?"

"Eh. Been better, been worse. You?"

"I'm fine. Are you excited for our mission?"

"Hell yeah." Mai grinned. "Lets go gut some fools."

"You don't know that we'll be fighting anybody, Mai-chan," he reminded her. "It might very well be something political, or perhaps a retrieval case."

"Oh please. Everyone's trying to tear out everyone's throats 'cause of Akatsuki now." she drawled. "Your fault this, your fault that. Shoulda taken care of them earlier, shoulda killed your nuke-nin instead of letting them be. Wah, wah."

"How do you know that?"

"Ahh, Shorty-sama whines almost as much as I do. Anyway, even if it is some kind of political thing, we'll probably still end up fighting someone."

"Your penchant for hand to hand combat worries me, Mai-chan," Shiragiku said, but he was still smiling like he might giggle. Shiragiku was like a kunoichi, almost. Silent but deadly, with soft looks and light hair. "Perhaps it would be better if we didn't fight."

"Pfft. Whatever you say, Shiragiku. Hey, Eishi! Eishi!"

Eishi, with his bright salmon-pink hair standing out from the crowd a mile away, startled and glanced their way through the little bit of trickly traffic pushing in and out of the building of the Tower. He was leaned up against the wall- technically against his big-ass fan, but hey, splitting hairs. "Mai! Shiragiku! You seen Otokaze-sensei yet?"

Mai sighed, then yelled, "Eishi, he said he'd meet us inside!"

"What? Seriously?"

"How long have you been waiting, you baka?"

Eishi bristled defensively. "Not long. You're just late!"

"Am not," Mai said disinterestedly. "Sun says it's just past noon."

Eishi frowned as they stopped in front of him. "You can't read the sun," he said, but he sounded uncertain. In truth, Mai could read the sun- it was significantly harder to read the Suna sun than, say, Konoha's, but it was still possible if less precise. Or at least she read the shadows the sun made out of them.

"Can," she said. "But we're gonna be late if you don't hurry up."

Eishi shot her a dirty look, but Shiragiku killed the argument before it blew up. "Mai-chan's right, Eishi-kun."

"Isn't she always?" he said exasperatedly, but shook his head and peeled away from the wall. They went through the doors together, the three of them squeezing through beside each other, Eishi and herself elbowing and jostling each other good naturedly.

When they finally stepped into the missions room, Otokaze-sensei was already waiting for them with a paper in hand. Of course he hadn't waited for them. He'd probably given them the time to meet up that he did so they'd all be too late to argue over the mission choices.

"Hey," he said. "Who wants to go to Grass?"

...

~ Eishi snorted, out of breath. They both were panting, lying in the grass where they were supposed to meat their sensei and Shiragiku anyway. "Yeah, right." ~

...

"You're going to Kusa?"

"Apparently," Mai said sullenly. She was probably intruding, strolling into Fumiko and Gaara's room at ten PM,but she was a little irritated and mixed up and bored and she'd trained until nine and then taken a nap so now it was ten. In her defense, she'd expected Gaara to be working. But he'd been working less and less for the last few days, spending more and more time with not just Fumiko but his siblings as well.

All they'd been doing was repainting his kanji to bright red. Mai had walked in on this a thousand times, Gaara with his head in her lap, Fumiko with her paintbrush and fingers in his hair. If Mai ever had to describe Gaara during times like this, she would have to pick ragdoll kitten.

Now she was sitting on the edge of her bed with her head propped up on her arm, which was propped up on her crossed legs. Bad for her back, someone- she couldn't remember who- had told her once. Probably her grandma.

"If you're going to Kusa, could you pick up some plant stuff for me?" Fumiko chewed her lip, carefully brushing red along Gaara's almost-visible scar. "I've got a list of inventory-"

"I am not lugging tons of crap back from Kusa."

"Not much." Fumiko smiled lopsidedly, flicking her eyes up to look at her. "For this, not my studio." She wiggled her fingers in Gaara's hair to gesticulate. "This is my last usable batch. I don't need much. A few teaspoons of ground fibers, I can use for months. A few stalks, I'm good for a while."

Mai eyed her. "How much?"

"Two or three foot or so long stalks," she answered.

"What is your mission?" Gaara rumbled quietly. "Why do you need to go to Kusa? I don't filter through every mission request."

"Ahh, some politics crap," Mai grumbled. Stupid Shiragiku, he'd probably jinxed them. "We're not even escorting anyone. We're supposed to go there, and help with some of their rebuilds. They requested that, but Suna edited it it a bit. Now we're snooping around."

"Snooping around?" Fumiko blinked. "Wait, aren't we allies with Kusa?"

"We think so," Gaara said. "But there's been problems. Grass isn't a very well governed village, not since they split and came back together. A lot of it's people believe different things. Do you remember the Chuunin exams? The ones who threatened to hurt us?" He might have shaken his head in a different situation. "Their government and some bigger shops and companies there are allies with us. The others don't care or wouldn't mind killing our shinobi."

"Wait, those guys were Grass? Ohh, right. I remember now."

"Wait, you guys were threatened?" Mai exclaimed, poking her head up. "For what?"

"Some gambler or another," Gaara sighed. "They didn't get much farther than pulling a knife."

Mai snorted. "Bet that went over with you like a ton of bricks. They dead?"

"No."

"Shame. Care to tell me what they looked like?"

Fumiko chimed in, "No."

...

~ "You would think I was wrong for helping that kid." ~

...

Two days to Kuso, a week there, two days back. Eleven days trip equaled, for her, three sets of clothes, a complete assortment of senbon, razor wire, shuriken and kunai of different makes. Three packets of chakra pills, with two soldier pills each. A sleeping bag. Normalties like granola bars and dried fruits and beef jerky. Minimal for a shinobi, but Mai was pretty minimal when it came to travel. Otokaze-sensei had regulation rations for them all, and Shiragiku tended to stow away a couple of freaky energy-drink grapefruits for her.

Everything she packed into her bag and her kunai pouch. It took her a few minutes to find everything and zipper them into the right pockets. As an afterthought she added a slightly crappy regulation first aid kit with a roll of bandages, some sanitary wipes, morphine and stitching supplies. That was fine, because aside from basic battlefield medicine like CPR and stitching skin back together and wrapping limbs, she didn't know any medicine. She didn't know where to stick the morphine needle or how to tell if there was an infection besides crap, it's oozing pus.

Then she slung her bag up over her shoulder. It was just past first light again the morning after Taicho's funeral and her mission assignment.

Mai didn't know if she should leave now, after everything that had happened. Even if it was just a little less then two weeks, things had just settled down, like, a week ago. Was it really okay? The last time she'd left on a mission, everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.

Nah. Gaara and Fumiko were each other's shrinks. The chances of something like that happening again were so minuscule as to be negligible. She wasn't really needed here; might as well go get Fumiko's miracle plants from Kusa. Madder, or something like that.

It took longer than she thought to get away, because this time her mother had ambushed her with breakfast, asking a million questions about her mission. Was it safe? Honest? No? Oh well. Eat more food, you'll need it travelling around the desert. By the time she finally made it out the door she'd decided to save the day's rations to double up on a travel day when they got stuck in a sandstorm or she was just really damn hungry.

She met up with her team at the village gates, and her sensei just outside them. Mai was pretty sure the jonin just liked to act like he was the cool guy always one step ahead of them, always where he needed to be, making you feel stupid for not seeing him.

"Hey, Gakis," he said. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah, old man," Mai said, grinning. "Off to Kusagakure."

...

~ "He tried to punch a guy three times his- size!" ~

...

Traveling from Sunagakure to Kusa was almost like traveling to Konoha. The sand speckled with grass after the first day and a half, then a few trees here and there, and then all of a sudden- bam- there was forest, which kind of majorly sucked. Mai had never been to the Grass village, and kind of hoped that it would be, well, grassy- like prairie grass or something.

She didn't like the woods... although, she had to say, when they were perhaps five or six hours out from the village, the giant mushrooms were pretty cool. They towered like another species of tree. Or maybe not, they were growing out of the trees, and when she looked, the leaves were few and far between. These mushrooms were like canopies to the towering trunks.

During a break, Mai excused herself to go to the bathroom and scaled one of those trees as soon as she was out of sight, hauling up with her chakra all the way to the first mushroom. They were different shades of brown, lighter at the stalks and mud-dark on the top, with mixed underneath. Curiously she poked it- spongy and soft and almost wet.

Mai broke off a chunk from the top the size of her head and sealed it away into a regulation weapons seal, then scratched out a smaller piece- the size of her fist, maybe- from the stalk, which was significantly thicker and harder than the squishy tops- and sealed that away, as well. She'd bring it to Shiragiku later, see what he thought of them. Maybe they'd be good for her sister's paint stuff.

Stepping back into the campsite, she got a dry look from Eishi, who was tending a little campfire. Shiragiku and Otokaze-sensei were gone; probably foraging for food.

"What?"

"That was a pretty long potty break."

"Oh, shut up." Mai huffed and plopped down next to the fire. It was muggy in this forest, but it was getting colder, like the mugginess was turning into cool fog. "This place is weird."

"Yeah." Eishi poked the fire with a stick. "Barely any branches for fire. Shiragiku had to grow fuel."

Shiragiku, Mai had realized over time, had more to his kekkei genkai than just boosting plants. He could grow them, on purpose, at a super accelerated rate. He carried seeds on him always, in a little sash peppered with sewn on pockets underneath his tunic. He wasn't very good at it yet, but twigs and burnable fuel was something he could do, with concentration.

"I bet this mushroom'd burn," she said, glancing around at the trees. Their shadows were tarting to dance and flicker to the beat of the flames. Mai gritted her teeth, fighting off the what she knew was imaginary smell of charring meat.

"Yeah, that's what I said, but Otokaze-sensei said he doesn't know if we're supposed to mess with the mushrooms, or if they're poisonous, or something." Eishi shrugged. "Mostly that he doesn't know if the village would be okay with us burning their shrooms."

Mai considered this. "Think they're important or something? Passersby in all the other villages can utilize the materials around. Konoha with their trees and us with our brush and edible cactai."

"The last thing we need is a fight with Kusa." Eishi sighed. "Man, I'm hungry. Hey, did you see any animals around that Otokaze-sensei might nab? All I saw were a bunch of bugs. They sure like those mushrooms..."

"Eh, not really." Mai's own stomach was fine- she could eat, but she didn't really need to. "Didn't you bring snacks?"

"Yeah, but I ate them all." Eish huffed. "Those rations aren't much."

Mai shrugged. "They're enough."

"I guess so."

They sat there in silence for a few moments, shadows stretching and curling around them like Shikamaru's shadow jutsu. The fire crackled and spat, eating up the little supply of wood Shiragiku had created.

"They don't get back soon," Mai said at last, stretching, "We're not going to have a fire to cook with."

"You could maybe use a Katon on it," Eishi mused. "Although unless you can spit oil, I guess it won't last long."

"Nah. I haven't learned that yet."

"Really?" Eishi paused. "Huh."

"Isn't it odd that Kusa requested a mission for a C-rank from Suna to come for a week to help with repairs?" Mai said suddenly. She didn't want to talk about fire. "I mean, what repairs, anyway?"

"Dunno." Eishi shrugged, then dropped the poking stick into the slowly dying fire. "I think something Akatsuki."

"Akatsuki?" Mai startled. "How do you know that? Are you sure?"

Eishi shrugged again. "No. Just a rumor I heard from the jonin at the missions desk. You might've heard it, too, if you stayed after Otokaze-sensei explained our mission." He rested his head on his arms, drawing his knees to his chest. His closed fan lay unused on the ground beside him. "Apparently they heard some outskirts buildings got hit."

Mai frowned thoughtfully. Kusa wasn't far from Konoha, a day's journey at the most. But Kusa shouldn't have had anything the Akatsuki really wanted, unless they had a penchant for special, modified plants. Kusa ran on politics and trade with their herbs and plants. Unless some of the ninja there knew something about what they wanted? "Okay, maybe, but that doesn't explain why they need Genin from another village to fix it."

"They didn't request Genin," Eishi reminded her. "Just a C-rank we were qualified for."

"Still."

Eishi groaned, exasperated. "I don't know, Mai. Maybe they're all just too spooked to mess with it."

Mai snorted. "If that's true, then they're just pussies."

"Back from your bathroom break already, huh, Mai-chan?"

Mai blinked and turned. Otokaze-sensei broke from the line of trees, with a cloth bag full of something, probably food. Then she pulled her lips back and gave him a withering glare. "Shut up about that, would you? You've been gone for, like, a half an hour!"

"And look, you two didn't destroy anything."

Mai twitched. "Ah, shut up, old man! Anyway, what'd you catch?"

"Frogs," Otokaze-sensei announced cheerily.

Mai groaned. It made sense, when she thought about it- the mugginess, the wet-soil smell of the place, the massive mushrooms- of course there was water everywhere, the ground was squishy with it in some places. There would be frogs everywhere. Frog didn't necessarily taste bad, but they were gross and slimy.

"Bull or tree?"

"Little bit of both." Her sensei dropped the bag by the fire and eased down, crossing his legs in front of the fire. "Shiragiku-kun come back yet? I sent him out to find some plants. More of that than meat around these parts."

"No," Eishi said. "Not yet."

"Otokaze-sensei?" Mai asked. He blinked and glanced her way. "Is it true that the Akatsuki attacked Kusa?"

And what if it is? something taunted in her head. You gonna take them out, Mai?

"Honestly, I have no clue." Otokaze-sensei grinned. "It's all just rumors. Anyway if there was anything solid on it they wouldn't have given the mission scroll to a Genin team, would they?"

"I guess not," Mai said, and spotted Shiragiku ghosting out of the mushroom-wood trees behind Eishi and Otokaze-sensei, his pouch bulging. Mai had no idea how he kept his steroid plants differentiated from whatever he always found when they were out on missions, but... "Hey, Shiragiku."

"Find anything good?" Eishi called without looking back over his shoulder.

"Not much," their teammate replied in his quiet, water-trickle voice. "It's mostly just lichen around here."

"Great," Mai said sarcastically, feigning excitement. "Lichens and frog legs and rations."

...

~ "Kid was stupid and brave, what can I say?" Mai winced and touched her fingers to her throbbing eye. "Ow." ~

...

Sleep, like the other two night they'd been travelling, was hard to come by.

Mai was perfectly still, staring up at the thick canopy of spiraling mushroom heads above their heads. There were frog and cricket sounds all around her, and it was cold and damp, which her sleeping bag barely warded off. Peaceful enough. Mai wondered if survival training in places like this or Konoha was less intense than survival training in the desert.

Their fire had gone out hours before. Despite the fact that they were only five hours out, Otokaze-sensei had decided to set up camp and rest until nightfall. Technically Eishi was supposed to be on watch, but she could hear him snoring from across the fire pit, so she was listening carefully to the world around her. With nothing better to do, she was almost hoping that some random bandit number three would attack them.

Unlikely, but possible.

Mai sighed, turning over on her side to stare into the blackness between the trees.

She had never been afraid of the dark. Most ninja weren't. You got to a point where there was too much to be frightened of to be paranoid of superstition and mind-fears. Sure, everyone had phobias, but she hadn't met a ninja yet that was scared of the monster in their closet. But still, there was something about this darkness that was unsettling. The perfect cover for someone trained to be an assassin by a sensory-nin. Less stimuli to distract from detecting an enemy.

But it was just so dark. Jeez. Like misted squid ink.

Like it was moving...

Oh. Fun. Mai grinned. I hope they come for me first.

...

~ "You're welcome." ~

...

"Mai?" Eishi said groggily, sitting up, fan in hand. "Wha's goin- oh."

"Dumbass tried to cut my throat," Mai said proudly, tying off the last knot of rope. "Then her dumbass friends tried to cut sensei's."

Otokaze-sensei held up a lazy hand in recognition. Mai was, of course, a little pissed that out of the three bandits she'd only gotten to fight one, but apparently she hadn't seemed like enough of a threat to surround. Sucked.

She'd felt them after a second, when she really stopped to concentrate. That weird ink-darkness thing had been some kind of jutsu, laced with the barest bit of chakra. Although she didn't know exactly what it was or how it worked, it had masked the attackers' chakra and their appearance. So she'd waited, eyes closed, completely relaxed. Her bag was unzipped, so she knew if they went after Eishi or Shiragiku she could jump out easily, but she was closest to the supplies and the only girl.

And then the girl ninja had gotten too close to jump out of range, and the rest... well, she wouldn't be able to open that eye for a while.

And then she'd turned around, ready for a real fight, and found to her dismay that their sensei had already dispatched the other two. So unfair. Mai probably could have taken the both of them on, especially in the dark.

"Good thing I was covering your sorry but," Mai chided. "And that I didn't actually fall asleep."

...

~ "For?" ~

...

They took off at first light with the bandits in tow, two guys and one girl without headbands. Maybe recently defected adult genin or chuunin nuke-nin, and they wouldn't tell where from or even confirm it, so Team Otokaze was bringing them back to Grass to see if that was where they belonged.

They might even make a bit of money off it, Mai thought, if these guys had a bounty of any kind. Most defects did, even if it was small. Sunagakure only took a percentage of the mission payments, but if they got yen off the group of ambushers then they got to keep all of it. And, according to Otokaze-sensei, her and him only, since Eishi fell asleep on watch and Shiragiku had chosen not to fight.

Mai was deciding whether or not to buy something with it or save it, granted that they got anything at all, when they finally hit the village's gates, big wooden walls built like linkin logs, without a door, just an arch. Most village gates had no actual doors, which Mai thought was kinda odd.

They passed through easily, showing the patrols the mission scrolls and their ninja IDs. First they made their way to the nearest police-esque operation, found out that the nuke-nin were from Grass, got paid pretty well for ninja that couldn't even properly sneak up on a genin squad, then headed off in the direction of their government's main building.

Grass sort of had a Kage, but the council they used had more power, less like an advisory and more like a voting class.

Anyway they were given information and papers for a place to stay and sent them out with someone to the greenhouses outside of the village- there were fifteen of the goddamn things altogether, ten inside the village walls and five out in the mushroom-forest- to look at the damage.

Mai whistled appreciatively, resting her palms on the tops of her sword hilts. Two of the greenhouses had been completely demolished, just a bunch of rubble and dying leaves, splintered wood and twisted metal beams. The buildings were about the size of regular houses, maybe a little bit bigger, and the muddy ground was hard like it'd been burned.

There were flaps of canvas and still sparking primitive electrical wire that she didn't feel like nudging with her toes. Instead she pried up a board of wood from the mess; charred and shattered. The piece of debris was bigger than her head. Mai tossed it back to the ground and turned.

"They want us to fix this in a week?" She kicked at a broken flower pot. "Both of them?"

"Work is work, and they pay well," her sensei said. "Between the three of you and me, we should make it in time."

"Yeah, if we don't sleep," she muttered, glancing over at her teammates. Eishi's eyes were like moons, and he had his fan in hand, glancing nervously around. Shiragiku's lips were pursed, although knowing him it was more over the loss of the plants than the actual level of destruction.

Mai herself cast a cursory glance at the expanse of woods, which started up again about sixteen yards away from the buildings. It was unlikely that whoever had done this was still hanging around. But holy freaking shit, whoever had done this was a real piece of work. Probably could snap her neck if she wasn't careful in a fight.

What was the point of this? Destroying a greenhouse? Did they take something first, then demolish it to cover their tracks? Or was it just vandalism? Was their something inside Kusa was hiding?

Mai's mind was kicking a thousand miles an hour, but she knew there was nothing to be done about it until she could get ahold of someone to ask. A few more seconds passed of silence, the trio staring at the mess.

"Well," she said dryly when the quiet stretched too long, "I guess we should get to work."

...

Eishi loosed a disbelieving snort. "Saving your ass!" ~

...

The next week was full of clearing away the damage and completely restarting from the framework, building up and welding metal and wood and nailing up woods for walls and stretching canvas over the top.

With any other Genin group, it might've been really stupid to leave the rebuilding of two greenhouses vital to the trade of an entire village to a trio of twelve-and-thirteen year olds and a sensei from the village hidden in the sand, but they had Shiragiku on their team. Shiragiku knew greenhouses inside and out, Mai knew how to repair broken things and do a lot of heavy lifting, Eishi was a quick study and Otokaze-sensei made sure they never ran out of supplies.

They ate quick lunches and dinners supplied by shinobi of Kusagakure (who, by the way, didn't seem very confident in the success of a bunch of kids in building greenhouses) threw away probably at least a ton's worth of garbage bags of stuff, slept short hours, and skipped breakfasts.

They were supposed to be snooping around, but it was hard to get away. Otokaze-sensei usually sent either her or Shiragiku out on the premise of getting more nails or water or something like that, which gave them time to browse through the forest, or to slip through the village with their headbands hidden away. Mai just spun hers around her belt so no one could see the protector, but Shiragiku, having sewn his to his bag, had to hold it to his chest.

There wasn't much suspicious, well, anything going on... until Mai realized that absolutely nobody, civilian or ninja, wanted to go out into the woods, or even go past the greenhouses. Nobody was completing missions outside of the walls. Shiragiku got the same vibe when they came back to the group.

Then, suddenly, they were almost finished with the second greenhouse, and were leaving the next day, and still had no clue why nobody would go out into the woods. Asking around only got silence or followup questions, which was curious as hell, but they were out of time. They would have to leave at morning's light.

...

~ "I feel bad for whatever kids you have. All talk and no fight." ~

...

The night efore their departure, Mai was sitting on her sleeping mat, fingers tap-tap-tapping against her leg.

"It has to be Akatsuki," she muttered to herself angrily. Everyone had their own room, so she was certain her anxiety wouldn't wake anybody up.

If it were anything else, she wouldn't care. But they had gone after Gaara for a very specific reason- Shukaku. Which meant that, if they kept on a pattern, they would probably go after other tailed beasts. But why did they need them? And where would they go? Mai only knew one jinchuuriki now- Naruto.

She didn't want Akatsuki going anywhere. Damn bastards had messed with her village and her friends and her sister. Maybe they didn't have any more darkness than her, but if they kept messing with other villages, shit was gonna go down. It wasn't like she was particularly concerned about the jinchuuriki in other villages- except Naruto maybe- but what concerned her was their apparent intent to take jinchuuriki.

What did it mean? What were they going to use them for? To make new jinchuuriki? That was concerning- those S-ranks with the power of the biju... or had they found a way to channel the energy somehow? Were they trying to turn the villages on each other, like start a war? Did they need them all, or only some? There were too many factors.

But Kusa, so far as she knew, didn't have a jinchuuriki, so if it was Akatsuki- and that seemed to be the only thing scaring villages this badly- then why were they a threat to Kusa? Why take out two greenhouses, of all things? Were the villagers in danger by going outside the village?

Okay, so scratch Kusa, just for a second. What was nearby?

A day off was Konoha. A little more than a day in the opposite direction was, uh, was... Iwa. Did Iwa have a beast? She couldn't remember. But other than those two villages nothing was nearby enough for Kusa to get caught in a crossfire.

Mai groaned and stood up, hands on her knees, feeling a hundred years old, and grabbed her swords belts. It was pitch black outside, moonless, with only the light of a few stars to go by, but that was fine. Kusa, unlike Konoha, didn't have roots in the ground. Every once in a while she would walk by a mushroom, casually the size of streetlights, like trees.

She slipped out the door, wondering if Otokaze-sensei knew she was leaving.

It was cold, the village ridden with that same misty coldness as the surrounding woods. She was wearing a sleepshirt, a grey baggy t-shirt with normal sleeves, and similarly loose black pants. She left her bag and thigh pouch behind, so she looked like a wandering civilian, minus the scar on her lips and the swords on her belts.

...

~ "Kids?" Eishi wheezed. "I feel bad for whatever guy marries you, you crazy-" ~

...

About twenty minutes later she'd broken into the archives and was leafing through a few books on jinchuuriki and folklore. She'd also stumbled across a very interesting scroll in the upper levels about what was apparently the original Akatsuki- all of whom supposedly died a while back. Some kind of rebel group fighting to free their village from tyranny.

Seemed to be that this new Akatsuki was doing the opposite. A bingo book and the records on biju, however, revealed that there was a tailed beast in Iwagakure, so it could be either- but judging from where the mushroom forest was versus Konoha's hirashima trees, Mai was pretty sure that if the Akatsuki were here on a mission, they would go after the Five-tails in Iwagakure.

Mai pursed her lips. This was stupid, anyway, everything was speculation, and there wasn't any evidence to it at all besides that people didn't want to go into the woods. Big deal. Maybe there was a dangerous criminal out there they just didn't want to talk about...

There was nothing else to find. Aside from a signature boil release, there was nothing about the five-tails that clicked a link with the greenhouses. If Kusa was hiding something in those two greenhouses it'd been either taken or destroyed, and she wasn't going to find out browsing through the local archives.

Mai flinched at the sound of footsteps, waving out the flames in her hand (which were very hard to maintain without burning herself) and scooped up the scrolls and books, quickly eeling underneath the table. She pulled the chair in by the legs. Mai didn't know how to suppress chakra very well, so she only had to hope that whoever this person was didn't sensor very well.

The sandaled feet passed her right by. She could see the yellow glow of a flash stick dance across the wood floors, but whoever it was kept on going, and eventually Mai heard a door open and close. She waited for a few more heartbeats before rolling back up to her feet, put the books and scrolls back exactly where she'd found them, and left how she'd come, through the unlocked window at the top floors. What, they didn't think people could wall-walk?

The greenhouses were complete. It was weird that they didn't have any, well, greens in them yet, but still, Mai was pretty damn proud of them.

Why was she still outside in the middle of the night, out by the greenhouses?

Because the shinobi in this village refused to guard the greenhouses. It was really almost scary how few were willing to bring them food. It wasn't like they'd seen anything or anyone strange or suspicious aside form those few defectors in the two days between Suna and Kusa. Even if it was Akatsuki these guys were overreacting big-time. Although, she supposed it wasn't a very strong village. Whatever had happened had spooked the Kage here pretty bad.

The likelihood of whoever had ruined the original greenhouses leaving something behind in one of the other outbuildings was unlikely but possible, if they didn't know about it.

Beside her, eyes still bleary with sleep, Shiragaku muttered, "Why am I out here, again, Mai-chan?"

"'Cause I don't know anything about plants." Mai flashed him a grin. "Don't worry, I've been out here before. They don't watch this place at night."

"Yes, but Mai-chan, what are we doing?"

"Looking for something weird." Mai shoved her hands in her pockets. "You've been studying these greenhouses all week to get it right, right? The original plans, but you haven't been in the buildings, right? And the plants they usually have? So you could plan out sunlight and crap?"

"Hai, but-"

"Well, we're going inside the greenhouse," Mai said, "And you're going to see if they have unlisted plants or something. I'll look around too, but I don't know shit like this like you do, Shiragiku."

"Are we breaking in?"

Mai tested the door, then grinned again when it popped open with a loud skeeeee. "Nope."

They slipped inside, wary of traps, but nothing broke, screamed, or tried to kill them, so Mai guessed that they either didn't expect anyone to break into a greenhouse, or they didn't have anything to hide.

Mai skimmed through the papers in the back, with all of the results and inventory, blah, blah, blah, and wished she'd thought to borrow Fumiko's camera, because she didn't know what any of this meant. Mai was no good at memorizing names, so all of these plant classifications were useless unless she stole them, which she couldn't do.

"Oh," she heard Shiragiku say softly. "my Kami."

"What?"

Shiragiku had his spooked-deer look on. He was in a weird place, ducked halfway underneath a table. For a second he didn't say anything at all, head tucking back under the thick foliage that boiled over the tabletops like tablecloths. Mai scowled when he didn't move.

"What, Shiragiku?"

"Megusurisō."

"... Huh?"

"Really rare," Shiragiku explained, rolling back out from underneath the table to sit. "Megusurisō is a plant that helps with eye sicknesses and strain."

"So?"

"So I didn't know it could grow here... it's supposed to be impossible. Mai-chan, would you hand me a sample bag from my bag?"

Mai glanced at his bag, which rested n the edge of a long, rectangular pot without flowers in it, just seedlings sprouting out of the dirt. She knew what his bags looked like, but she paused. "You're going to take it?"

"Some. Leaves."

Mai hesitated, then shrugged. "What the hell." She reached out and pulled open the flaps, rooting for a bit in a side pocket before tossing it to the ground where Shiragiku crouched. "How'd you find it."

"Luck," he said quietly. "I noticed something was dying and was about to pinch off the vine."

...

~ "Hey!" Mai snapped. "I'm gonna get married! You jerk!" ~

...

When they finally made it back to the hotel room, it was first light, and Eishi and Otokaze-sensei were already packing up. They nodded at them as they entered. Mai and Shiragiku just nodded back, Mai making a mental note to bring the weird eye-plant up when they were traveling home.

...

~ "Right." Eishi drawled, sitting up, holding his ribs. The baka had tried to talk a bunch of guys out of continuing a fight a little kid had picked and Mai had tried to finish. Kid wasn't wrong, just didn't have the muscle to back it up. "And your kids will be psychos." ~

...

Three days later, writing up her individual mission report, Mai wrote down both the known part- the rebuild- and the uncertain parts- the plant (singular. There was a pot, according to Shiragiku, no bigger than a single kunai stabbed in the dirt.

If Mai had to guess, she'd say that was the only plant left. If there had been a bigger majority in the other two outbuildings, then they were gone- stolen. But hypotheticals were not allowed in the mission reports, only the facts. She groaned when she realized that if this turned out to be serious, she would have to write another mission report for ANBU.

...

~ "At least they'll beat you in a footrace," Mai muttered. There was no way for Eishi to know that she couldn't have kids, and it's not like he would understand that she cared. "Slow-ass." Eishi paused, going silent. "What?" ~

...

"Hey, I got your plant things, Fumiko."

Fumiko smiled, taking the bag of stalks from her hand. "Thanks! I told Hana you were coming so they wouldn't have a shortage."

"Oh," Mai said. "That explains why she was trying to give me extra. I thought she just thought I was poor or something. Why do people like you so much, huh? You used to get on everyone's nerves."

Fumiko snorted, stowing the plants away into a cooler for later. "Dunno. Maybe I'm just not as spastic." She paused. "Or maybe they're just used to me."

...

~ He cursed. "Get up, they're back!" ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry


	9. Together

...

~ "Gaara, what do you think about wars?" ~

...

Fumiko didn't think she would ever get used to Gaara's newfound affection.

Ever since that first day Fumiko had let herself sleep, after she had let herself go, and after she had abandoned the anger and the fear and the guilt in their bedroom, Gaara had been even more hesitant to leave her on her own. Of course, to other people, it seemed pretty normal, and not like that much had changed.

But this waking up every morning without being alone was... good. It felt good and special and nice to wake up every morning on her own time and see Gaara, already dressed in his robes and showered and ready to leave, waiting, sitting on the edge of the bed. He never expected her to go anywhere, just waited to be able to say goodbye in the morning.

It wasn't like she hadn't changed. She didn't let Gaara go anywhere without telling him she loved him. That was one mistake she didn't want to make again- the last time she hadn't said it, it had turned out that she wouldn't ever again. A staged death, almost, to teach her about what she had.

Even aside from that, she was sick. Just a cold, she guessed, or the flu, with the nausea and the headaches that had plagued her for the last few days. It wasn't so bad; the headaches only lasted for an hour or so a day, and she only threw up sometimes. But Gaara had always tried to stay with her when she was sick, even after he became Kazekage.

In the past, he'd always skipped school. It was so much simpler when they were young, especially because either nobody cared if he was absent or were too afraid to say anything to his face. But as Kazekage, it was much more difficult to do that, not only because he had a lot of work to do but because of the image it presented. If he put off something as important as the village because his girlfriend had the flu, then that girlfriend immediately became the interest of every person in all five Nations that didn't like him or the way he ran things. Not to mention that it irritated higher-ups and basically just caused a whole lot of trouble that they would rather not deal with.

This problem had been solved by her sometimes going with him to his office, and that was how it worked. But now she was busy and he was busy and it was probably better for her to stay out of his office anyway if she was throwing up. Gaara claimed he didn't care but Fumiko knew it was super distracting to both him and whatever ANBU were posted.

"Morning," she slurred as she opened her eyes, catching at first only the blurry white and red coloring of her friend. Then she blinked and the world focused again. "... Time is it?"

"Seven sixteen," he said. "I have to go. Are you all right?"

"Yeah," she said when a moment's pause didn't bring up cause to puke into the small trashcan at the side of the bed. "I'm good. Don't feel as bad as yesterday. You?"

"I'm not the one that's sick."

"Yeah, well, you were," Fumiko said through a yawn, stretching her arms out into the air above her, still lying down. "And I might make you sick now."

Gaara made a face and picked up his hat where it sat beside him. "Please don't. I have a lot of work to do."

"I have no control over that whatsoever," she said, laughing. "and you know it. My germs could be in the air, right now, floating all over the place, and it could be too late for you to do anything about it!"

"Well," he said, then stopped. "Uh..."

"No comeback?" Fumiko grinned. "C'mon, I'm sick and bored already!"

He put on his hat and poked her side under the covers in retaliation, then stood, shaking his head, to leave. Usually Fumiko would have called him over to kiss him, but she'd only been half joking about getting him sick. Being sick really was boring, and exhausting, even when she was well enough to get up and go to the kitchen, which she was.

"Love you," she called after him.

The door paused, almost closed behind Gaara's back. "You too," came his soft reply, and then it clicked shut, and she was alone in bed with the lights on. Gaara had left the light in the bathroom on by accident again; not that it really mattered, the Tower paid for itself, and she would turn it off later when she finally decided to get up and get ready.

Love you. You too.

Those two phrases were their love story. It was totally on accident that it had come about, as well- something she had said after waking him up from a sleep terror so many long years ago, and that he had finished, and said it again, and again, and again until he finally calmed down. Then it had become something of a running inside joke to them for a while, before becoming natural, and then becoming serious.

Fumiko lied there for a few more minutes, humming to herself quietly under her breath and thinking about snow. She had never seen snow. From pictures, it was exactly like but the opposite of sand- cold, white, and wet rather than hot, yellow-brown-orange, and dry. But it drifted the same way as sand did, in piles and against houses. There were snowstorms and and sandstorms...

Eventually she got up, a little wobbly but better than yesterday morning, and got dressed, planning to make breakfast for the first time in three days. Mai would probably be hanging around if she hadn't gone to training already, as would Kankuro and Temari. Gaara would eat later as well. Even though she'd been sick, the Siblings and Mai still waited in the kitchen, waiting to see if she could make breakfast before giving up and pouring themselves cereal or heating up leftovers.

Fumiko changed and brushed her teeth and combed her hair. She'd come to terms with the loss of her satchel, although it was strange not being able to reach into a pouch and pull sugar out, instant gratification. She might put a jar into her medical pouch later, but that seemed kind of weird, didn't it, putting sugar in a health bag?

It was also strange without her charm. It had been almost a month since getting Gaara back, two weeks since sleeping with him, and she still hadn't gotten used to not having it, always reaching for it in the mornings, searching for it with her fingers when she got nervous or bored. It'd weighed enough to be noticeable even against her turtleneck, what with all the sand.

Was she looking a gift horse in the mouth, wondering still why the sand had saved her life?

...

~ Gaara blinked, looking over at her where she sat idly on her swing. "Wars, Fumiko? Why?" ~

...

Kankuro clapped sarcastically when she made her way into the kitchen.

"Yay," he said dryly. "Real food."

"Oh, be quiet, Kankuro," Temari snipped back. "Fumiko hasn't been feeling well."

Mai was spinning a kunai on the table with her fingers boredly, looking sufficiently zoned out. Fumiko sometimes wondered where her senbon had gone- she had always had a ton of those, and then, poof, she barely used them. She realized that she had never actually seen Mai use senbon in action, either on a target or against a person. Then again, she didn't see her sister use much else than fire-style and her Tantos.

It took a second for her sister to notice her, then another for her to straighten. The kunai spun off the table, but Mai easily caught it with one hand, not even looking at it, and then the blade was dancing between her fingers, long handle spinning. "Sup?" she asked. "Still feeling crappy?"

"Nope," Fumiko answered easily, sliding to the counter to make a big huge breakfast, eggs and pancakes and sausage and bacon and french toast. Mai went back to spinning, only now Kankuro was trying to prod her into conversation, and they argued like good friends.

On the subject of her own shifts of personality, Mai had changed radically. Not necessarily since any time- not since she had met Gaara or since she had joined Shadow Corps or since Gaara's kidnapping. Not since their father had changed, or since she had started making friends her age.

Mai was the epitome of change. She had changed so much in her lifetime that it seemed like she was more than one person. It wasn't just meek to strong, brash to somewhat careful. It was one feeling to another, circling, and each feeling got stronger as it looped- fear, anger, sadness, happiness. It was like they merged when it came to her, like there wasn't one without the other.

Her rage brought her joy and safety. Her sadness made her feel afraid and weak. Fear made her angry and defensive. She was constantly protected in a sheath of animalistic instinct, lazy and tense, ready to fight, but she was always smiling. Mai had many different smiles- smirks with varying stages of teeth, hard, glinting grins, open-mouthed shouts when she got good food or got down something new.

She didn't frown. Ever. Mai pursed her lips or bared her teeth or made no expression at all.

Fumiko had no idea what had happened to her little sister while she'd been away from herself. Something had altered, and now a million things were in the middle of butterfly-effect, and now it was impossible for her- Fumiko, her big sister- to tell how Mai would react to things anymore.

Usually, it was with noise. But her scariest reactions were her quiet ones. It was like Mai disappeared when she was quiet, analyzing every move you made, eyes low-lidded and lupine, calculating plans of attack or her next body signal. Intense in the opposite way that Mai was usually intense. That was happening more and more lately, lowered eyes and blank lips, perfectly controlled and still like a statue, looking through you.

It had to have something to do with ANBU. Fumiko had no way of telling, or even remembering other people's feelings at the time of Gaara's kidnapping, she'd been too busy wallowing in her shaky self to notice, but nothing aside from Gaara had happened- that she knew about.

She wanted to find out, but even if she did, Mai had grown out of maple milk. She didn't close out her words and ideals, but Fumiko could almost see that invisible wall that they pinged off of. Mai had her own words and ideals. Fumiko was too different from her to be of any use anymore- comfort, yes, but in the long run? Change? She didn't know if Mai would reverse-change.

Didn't know if she could. Didn't know if she should. It wasn't a bad thing. But Mai seemed trapped between the fiery spitball she had been, lazy and independent and powerful, and a cold, cut off mature shinobi, like Sasori had been, careful and planning every move, wasting no time on stupid things.

Fumiko wanted to help, but she didn't know if it was okay to want her sister to be who she had been two or three months ago. It confused her a little bit- she loved her sister the way she was now, but there was some part of her, some itsy-bitsy part of her that wished they were all just kids again, her and Gaara and Mai. Homeostasis- Fumiko didn't really like change. She didn't- dislike it, but...

She flipped the pancakes she had mixed and poured.

Kankuro seemed to have noticed it as well. Fumiko could see it in the way they interacted. They didn't really fight anymore. Not like back when she would have tried to clock him in the face for saying something sarcastic, and he would do so just because he was bored. Kankuro was quieter, poked and jabbed at her not really to get a rise but so they could bicker, which seemed to be like normal conversation to them.

And sometimes, when they were alone, it would just be totally quiet, both of them sitting or standing or a combination of the two, not even looking at each other most of the time, like they both just happened to be deep in thought at the same moment.

Maybe Kankuro knew. Or maybe he was just a shinobi.

"What are you making?" Kankuro said as he heard the snap-crackle-pop of bacon oil, breaking off from his 'conversation' with Mai on the topic of varying sizes of kunai handles and whether or not it was good to have one long enough to twirl in your fingers. "Smells good."

It did smell good. Unfortunately, for some reason, she felt sick to her stomach at the idea of eating anything except maybe pancakes, if they were drowned in syrup and sugar. "Yep," she said. "Do we have any fruit?"

Fumiko could hear the creak as someone, most likely Mai or Temari, leaned forward in their chair, presumably to check the bowl in the middle of the table. Probably Mai, she was closer to it.

"Yeah, some peaches and an apple and a grapefruit, and some strawberries." There was a stretch of a pause that lasted for a few seconds and a scraping sound. "Actually, scratch that. Some peaches and an apple and some strawberries."

"What is it with you and grapefruit?" Kankuro asked.

Mai snorted, digging into the fruit's thick skin with her fingernails and pulling it open as Fumiko trotted to the table to grab the strawberries. "Like hamburger steak is any better."

"At least it's meat."

"Kami, Kankuro, you sound just like dad," Temari muttered. "Fruits and vegetables can be good too."

"I like meat as much as the next guy," Mai said jovially, digging her nails into the pink fleshy part and tearing it out with her fingers. "But there's just something about grapefruit that can't be beat."

"You're not a guy," Kankuro said dryly, "And you're eating that like a cannibal."

Her sister scowled, flicking a piece of stringy pink guts at his face. It stuck to one of his black ears, but from the look of it, Kankuro thought he'd sufficiently moved to dodge it. Mai kept a perfectly straight face and went back to emptying her grapefruit. Things were quiet for another few seconds as Fumiko went back to her pancakes and bacon and sausage, sliding the first three pancakes onto a bigger plate.

Then- "What did you do?"

"What do you mean what did I do?"

"You didn't say something sarcastic."

"I don't have to be mean all the time, huh? Ever think of that?" Mai huffed, and her chair creaked again as she leaned back. "Maybe I just want to eat my grapefruit in piece without you nagging me!"

"You're a terrible liar. What'd you do?"

"I am not!"

Their fight continued as Fumiko poured the next three pancakes, flipped the bacon, spun the sausages in their pan, and then cut the strawberries into slices to put on the cakes.

Okay, maybe things hadn't changed all that much...

...

~ "Oh... we're learning about them in school," she said. Her feet didn't quite reach the ground yet. Neither did his. "The Shinobi wars. How it affected civilians. A few battles." ~

...

"What's all this?" Gaara blinked at the tray full of link sausages, what was left of the bacon, scrambled eggs with onions, green peppers and dates chopped up inside of them, two pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries, and a big thermos of orange juice. There was also two little tupperwares with sugar and syrup. Fumiko had her own plate on the tray with three pancakes and a peach on it, and some scrambled eggs.

"I haven't made breakfast in three days," Fumiko said, picking with her fork at the eggs. "I felt kinda bad."

"Sometimes I wonder what they did before they liked you," Gaara mused.

"Sometimes I wonder what you would've done if I'd never met you," Fumiko said, laughing, putting her fork down and reaching out to pick apart his brand-new mess. She hadn't been here in three days. That hadn't changed either. If anything it was worse now that Gaara put a little less priority on paperwork and a little more responsibility on his assistants. He had three of them, all of which Fumiko knew fairly well.

Gaara glanced at her sideways, tapping his fork thoughtfully against his plate. "Sometimes I wonder that too."

"You do?"

"What?"

"You do?"

"Do I what?"

"Think about that too."

"I said that out loud." It was less like a question and more like a statement. "Forget it; it's not important."

"No, no," Fumiko protested, abandoning the papers on her lap and putting her elbows on the desk, leaning closer. "Now I'm curious. Have you?"

Gaara sighed and took a bite of sausage, probably just to avoid the conversation, but now Fumiko's interest was peaked. Come to think of it, she'd never pondered what her life would have turned out like if she hadn't known Gaara, not even during his absence from the village. She supposed she would have had more Sunagakure-zoned friends her age, gone quietly to a civilian school, but never known her friends in Leaf or had any exciting near-death experiences.

Or known Gaara. Fallen like she had. Although personally Fumiko still believed that everything happened exactly how it was supposed to- if she hadn't met Gaara when she had she would have met him another day. If she'd been sick that day playing soccer or escaped, she might have bumped into him on the street, or wondered why he was always alone and approached him.

So it was all relevant, in a way.

But still. Gaara thought about things like that? Although she supposed he thought a little more than she did, deeply, about life and it's problems and the meaning of living in a desert wasteland. She thought about making something, he thought about the point of being a shinobi. She wondered if raccoon could have blue eyes, and he pondered whether or not he had made a difference in the world.

Sure she thought deep sometimes. Mostly about people. Moreso now than in the past; when not only did she never interact with anyone but Gaara and her family but she never saw real change as it happened. The people in her life had been static or constant up until... the Chuunin Exams, but even then everyone she knew was still more or less the same; and they changed slowly over time, just like she did.

But then- bam- and a lot of people were different, older.

Fumiko liked her airy thoughts better than philosophy. The meaning of life varied, so why not just live it and figure it out as you go? But Gaara was different than her in a lot of ways.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well... yes. Sometimes."

"Huh," she said. "What would our lives be like anyway?" She crinkled her nose a little in thought. "I think mine would be super boring."

Gaara took another bite of food and chewed carefully before answering. "My life would have been very... different, I assume." Tap tap tap went his fork. "Darker. Confusing." He took another bite, swallowed. "Lost."

Fumiko hummed. "Mai might still be really shy... my dad might have been more normal, I dunno, guess it depends... I would never have met Uzumaki Naruto or Lee or Neji or Shikamaru or anybody. Probably never would have learned Genjutsu or Taijutsu. Boring."

"Different," Gaara repeated in a way that suggested he had examined every single possible angle and dark corner of what-if's and that he just didn't care to share. Fumiko didn't push it any farther, although she did wonder. How many times had he thought about that before being kidnapped? Often? Fumiko had always just kind of known him and that was that.

"I guess so," she said, picking up the papers from her lap. "But I bet you'd still be a messy worker."

...

~ "Don't think about it too much, Fumiko," Gaara said quietly. "You won't be part of any wars. They're over." ~

...

The skin of most of her body was still a sickly shade of green, but most of the bruises were nearly gone. If you pulled down her turtleneck, even the dark stain on her throat had lightened to the last stages of purple. Fumiko would be glad when all of those marks were gone, and she could finally forget that the entire thing had ever happened... or at the very least, not be reminded of it every time she saw a reflective surface.

In any case, her stump was still aching from training. Fumiko wanted to sit down and stay down, even if she still wanted to practice, to hone.

She wasn't good at a lot of things, but one thing she had always been good at, right from the very beginning, was medical seals. Well, sealing in general. Memorization was like breathing for her, so once she learned the techniques and the strategies and the styles it was just like art.

Before it had always been for the hospital. To compensate for her inability to use medical ninjutsu probably, she guessed. But now she wondered... if she could enhance a stabilization seal to create a heartbeat, why couldn't she make something that interfered with a heartbeat? Or something that disrupted brainwaves and forced sleep? Why couldn't she write a tag that fought back instead of healed?

It was a theory, anyway.

Scattered around her bed were crumbled sheets of paper. Each sheet was two or three tries, but any more than that, and she could potentially blow herself up. Rough Draft seals were dangerous even aside from entangling kanji. There was the soft heesh-scrape of a brush and ink on calligraphy paper.

Fumiko hummed quietly to herself, sketching out two entwined kanji of lightening and water as one image. It wasn't a main part of the seal- not like heart was. The point, unfortunately, was to create a stream of electricity into the bloodstream. She couldn't exactly test it to find out, but Fumiko had the idea that it would be a little like injecting too much adrenaline into the nervous system.

Either the heart would fail and explode, or it would be too much and the target would go into a virtual seizure or heart attack, which would incapacitate him just as much.

Attempting to create a seal solely for the use of killing somebody was against almost every moral she had, as a person and a medic.

But something told her that it wasn't over yet. Maybe she wasn't afraid anymore, but that didn't mean she was going to sit back and give up if and when the times called for it. Now that she was ready to stand up for her own self, she thought that perhaps she finally had some good sense to plan by.

Fumiko studied the finished sketch, biting her lip. It looked uneven, but sometimes even uneven seals still turned out to be effective, even stronger based on the creator's intent... cautiously, she pushed a little bit of chakra into it, knowing she wouldn't be able to fully activate it without lightening (she would have to find a way around that) but trying to see if the flow was good.

The paper started to smell like burnt toast, and as soon as the edges started to brown Fumiko hurriedly tore the sheet out of her sketchbook and crushed it before tossing it onto the floor with the others.

She was making blueprints in her head, trying to overlay the things she had done right and cut off the things she had done wrong, but seals were a long and complicated business. Chewing on the end of the paintbrush, Fumiko blinked at her notebook for a second before starting over.

...

~ "Yeah," she said. "But... the last three wars we had... not even everything else too... they don't make any sense. They're so- so-..." Her nose scrunched a little. "Bitter. And it kinda seems like everyone loses, you know?" ~

...

"Shorty-sama."

Gaara looked up, eyes slowly focusing on Mai, who tilted her head slightly. He wasn't stupid or unaware; of course he'd known she was there, but the younger Mitsuwa hadn't said anything for a few moments, and so Gaara had kept working.

"Yes, Little Mai?"

She tilted her head even further, lips like a straight line. She didn't look upset, but her eyes said hurry up already.

Gaara paused, then put his brush down carefully in the little rectangular bowl Fumiko insisted on keeping for his brushes so he wouldn't lose them. Mai had her hands behind her back, probably holding her wrist, still looking at him with her impatient, passive facial expression.

"Dismissed," he said quietly.

He could feel the surprise in the air. "Kazekage-sama-"

"ANBU-san," Gaara said in the same controlled, calm tone. "You are dismissed."

After a few moments, there was an almost imperceptible shift as three shadows in his room shifted; one from the wall and two from the ceiling, and escaped through the door. The windows were far to small for even a child to squirm through. As soon as they were gone from sensing distance- which took a few long, silent minutes- Gaara turned his full attention to her.

"What is it?"

"I didn't feel like writing another mission report," Mai said. "And I'm not really supposed to anyway."

"What?" Gaara straightened. "What are you talking about?"

"Captain-sama," she clarified. "He tells you everything that concerns you. You know who dies, where enemy-nin have been sighted or if they've been killed, and you know about every S-ranked mission that runs through our system. At least, that's what Squirrel-taicho told me."

Gaara didn't mind not being directly connected with everything in the Shadow corps. Actually, he would really prefer not to know exactly what went on in the darker side of Sunagakure. Perhaps it was cowardly, but Captain-sama was very good at what he did and nothing had fallen apart yet, so there wasn't even a need to cause problems about the way his father had allowed ANBU to grow on it's own.

"Squirrel-san was your taicho?" Gaara filtered back through all six of the new Academy student-sized recruits he had seen on guard duty. Who had been the new assassin in training- with the tight black bun that was sometimes a ponytail. "Ah. You have Jackal's mask, then."

"Yeah," she said roughly. "Anyway... Gaara, when I was scouting around... well, you probably read my mission report."

"The Eye-medicine plant," Gaara said. "Yes. The Chigusa clan sent me a separate report as well."

"Well, yeah, that," she said. "And I broke into their library."

"You did what? Broke into Kusa's library? Why?"

"I couldn't sleep and it was bothering me. I mean, why would anyone burn down random greenhouses like that? Unless they stole something and ruined the rest of it to cover his ass, right? Except, chances were that whatever they'd taken wasn't in the other buildings. So then, I wondered. If they did something like that and didn't burn down the other buildings, wouldn't they be nearby?"

"I see. So you think the Akatsuki is stationed nearby?"

"Not all of them. There were only two in the cave, right? When Sakura and Chiyo and Naruto and Kakashi got there, but according to Neji there was energy. So a jutsu, maybe. Which would explain why they were able to manifest in Yura. So I think they work in two man teams."

"They do. Shikamaru's been helping us to identify them, one member at a time. So, you think that there are two Akatsuki members somewhere near Kusa?" Gaara narrowed his eyes slightly. Mai could be scarily deductive when she wanted to be, but the Akatsuki were elite. "How can you be sure it isn't a false trail?"

"Is there anyone on Akatsuki with bad eyes? Someone who would need that? Anyone in Kusa who might, say, assist them? Unless of course they went double-double-crosser or the Akatsuki needed to split, which would explain the burnings. You said yourself that Kusa had some bad eggs."

He hesitated, tapping his fingers against the desk. "That kind of accusation-"

"I'm not trying to accuse anyone of anything, Gaara, hold on a sec," Mai said, and there was some of her younger self, irritation blooming on her tongue. "Back to the subject of the library, I was snitching around through some of their higher-level scrolls and stuff, researching jinchuuriki."

Naruto, as well, had voiced his concern through many letters that the Akatsuki's continual hit pattern was against jinchuuriki. Fumiko thought so as well, and both theorized that after coming after Naruto and then himself, successfully extracting his bijuu, that they were after the beasts inside of the jinchuuriki. Mai, apparently, had as well come to the same conclusion.

"You might not be wrong." Gaara hesitated, a long, long stretch of tense quiet. His fingers paused, fingernails hovering just above the fine grained wood. "What do you think, then?"

"If they're still by Kusa," Mai said seriously. "And that's a big if- then that means they've moved bases. The last base they had was, like, a day or two away from Suna- their target. Yeah. So aside from Suna, what's a day or two out the closest from Kusa?"

"Hidden Waterfall or Rock."

Mai nodded. "But Hidden Waterfall doesn't have a jinchuuriki."

Gaara's eyes widened, then narrowed even further. "You think that... the Five-tails?"

"If they haven't already," Mai muttered. "Village probably wouldn't broadcast losing it's jinchuuriki any more than Suna would let out that it's Kazekage got kidnapped. It would explain why they bailed, if that's what Kusa was."

His chair pushed back almost against his will, but Gaara didn't stand. "Iwagakure and Sunagakure are practical enemies... as well as Konohagakure. It makes sense that we wouldn't..."

"If they went after the Five-tails, and then bailed, we're very probably screwed."

'Why is that?"

Mai looked him dead in the eye. "Because they aren't following a damned pattern. Nine-tails, one-tail, five-tails, that's how they tried it. If they're gone, we have no leads."

"Why did you wait so long to tell me?"

"It's been a week. I've still been putting pieces together, and waiting for Shiragiku to tell me more about that Eye-plant thing. And..." Mai hesitated. "And I've been dealing with my own shit. I'm telling you now because I think... because I think we can't do this on our own, Shorty-sama."

"What do you mean by that?" There was another long pause. Mai's lips trembled and then tightened. "... Mai?"

"I think it's about time," she said finally, "That we all get up off our asses. We need to protect the jinchuuriki. Who knows what the hell Akatsuki is planning... which means we need to track them. Which means..."

"We can't have more Iwagakures."

"Of course, there's no given that they're gone."

Gaara nodded. "I'll send a unit out to scout around Iwa and Kusa, but there's only so far I can go without overreaching my authority." He pinched his nose. "But if there's nothing, or I need to go further... Do you know what you're asking, Mai?"

"I'm asking you," she said, eyes looking almost through him, focused just barely a hair away from his eyes, fists clenched and by her sides. "to kill those bastards before they get anyone else."

And to think she was twelve. It was really too bad that the Chuunin exams had been postponed. It was just too risky, with the Akatsuki about. There had been talk of using it to draw them out, but the majority of the participants would have been young genin, no older than fifteen or sixteen, and neither Gaara nor Tsunade had been comfortable with it. If they had known the Akatsuki were so close, things might have been different, but...

Mai would have passed. Gaara wanted her out there on those B-ranks and real C-ranks, and not just in ANBU. Nobody knew her success in ANBU, except as Jackal, and even then, access to the other members was limited.

Gaara took a deep breath in.

Think.

Long breath out.

Decide.

"... Alright." Gaara said, and now he stood. By sending out his ANBU- and undoubtedly he would have to make it seem like Mai had told him something entirely different, he had a feeling she'd broken some kind of rule, and while he was Kazekage, rules could be rules, especially in places like that. He had to tell one of his assistants to put in the mission request... go to the aviary and message Konoha... and then... "I'll go send out the request for the unit. Mai, go home and rest."

Mai stopped him as he passed her.

"Gaara..." she said, almost softly. "Shorty-sensei... do you know who Squirrel-taicho was?"

Gaara halted mid-step. "I'm sorry, Mai," he said, and meant it. "I don't."

She bowed her head, and Gaara, knowing better than to touch her while she was vulnerable, silently swept out of the room, reaching up with one hand to pull down his Kazekage hat. Mai made no sound as the door quietly clicked behind him.

...

~ "Yes," Gaara said. He had already gone over wars in class. They went over it every year, each time going more deeply into the strategies used, tactics that had failed or succeeded, vital characters to each known battle, casualties suffered on every end. "They are." ~

...

After sending off Hani, his only free assistant, to request the specific A-rank Search mission and flying off a few letters from the aviary, Gaara detoured on his way to the office, partially because if Mai was crying, or even still in there at all, he didn't want to disturb her, and partially because he wanted to stop in and see how Fumiko was doing. She'd been getting sick a lot lately.

Pushing open their door, Gaara caught traces of semi-distracted humming and the familiar skritch-hiss of ink on parchment. Curiously, he pushed the door the rest of the way in and stepped inside. Something crinkled under his foot- a ball of paper. They were in piles all over the floor like anthills.

Fumiko was on the bed, sketching away in her small notebook, but she was 'sketching' in ink, and so far as Gaara knew she had never intentionally thrown away any of her works, not even the barest outlines. Braced on her lap was another thick medical text, and the hand that wasn't brushing lines was skimming down the rows and rows of microscopic kanji. Her prosthetic was on the ground, stump resting on a pillow. It looked almost like she'd painted it in purple and green, flowering.

"What are you doing?" he said, expecting her to have already recognized his presence.

To his surprise, Fumiko jumped, then slammed the book closed on her sketchbook. "What! Nothing."

Gaara blinked at her, raising his brow slightly and glancing at the floor, nudging a tedious-looking paper anthill with his toes. "Nothing."

Fumiko sighed. "I'm working on seals."

Seals? She had worked on seals near constantly when she worked in the hospital, always scribing or editing or tampering with them for hospital supplies, especially before she had become a legitimized employee. Why would she be so jumpy about seals?

"Alright," he said, finding new meaning in the crumpled sheets of paper all around him on the floor. "I take it you're developing something new?"

"I'll clean it up," she offered, then bit her lip and looked into her lap, pulling the book back open. "I'm.. I'm making kill-seals."

"Kill-seals?" Gaara repeated. Kill-seals?

"Or at least, seizure-seals." She bit her lip again. "I'm working on it."

"Kill-seals," Gaara said again. "Why are you making kill-seals?"

"Dunno, really." Fumiko didn't look at him, but continued to pen out whatever design she was currently working on. "I just have this feeling I'll need a few theoretically usable prototypes."

"Feeling, eh?" Gaara mused, wading through the mess. It was startling to think she would ever let herself create something like that. Especially since she had always used seals to help people and not hurt them. Fumiko wasn't a paranoid person. She never had been, and probably never would be. Her intuition was terrible. But...

"Yeah. You off work? Want to do something?" She peeked at him through her bangs and smiled.

"No," he said, a little guilty at her not quite disappointed oh. "I had some other things to do, and thought I would..."

"Check in," she agreed. "Yep."

There was a strange silence then. It wasn't like their comfortable silence, where words might come, and not like their small talk, when Fumiko would hold up the entire conversation and he would nod, grunt, and comment in three or four word phrases. It was almost awkward, like neither of them could quite pull out something to say.

Fumiko dropped her eyes back down to the text and her sketchbook, but her eyes seemed unfocused vision settling somewhere on cloud nine.

"Is something the matter?"

"Can we... do something later?" she asked without looking up. "Like... go build sand-castles?"

Gaara wound back the days in his head and realized that although they'd spent more time together virtually, before and after work, at night, they hadn't really played since... well, since before the Akatsuki. He'd had too much work to do and no Saturdays off.

It hit him, suddenly, that maybe Fumiko missed that.

His plans to sit in the office all day and work and work and wait for replies and pull strings and be stressed out but wait for dinner and then wait and leave before Fumiko probably went to sleep and hold her so she couldn't float away had been almost carbon-copies of his plans of every single day before.

Fumiko had always been okay with what she'd had. No, she'd always been happy with what she'd had. She didn't need a lot, she didn't want much at all, she lived on the little things in life. Perhaps that was because she'd never had a lot and had been fine with that. Even when Gaara had become Kazekage, she'd been okay with his chosen life, because they still watched movies and sunsets and talked about air.

Their lives had become so full compared to what they used to be. Fumiko lived on the little things in life, but maybe, just maybe, this fullness was making her smaller. Did she miss the way things had been? A lot of things had changed. Or, likely she didn't miss it, or didn't even know if she missed it. She had been a child, and now she was a grown-up.

Did Gaara miss that? He paused, looking through his own tangled emotions that were always tangled that he ignored, like the sand. Yes. Hushed voices under the moon, toes dragging through sand on the swing set, following through the feet of disbelievers. No expectations, really. No responsibilities. Just him, and her, and them.

Fumiko had turned into Suna. If push turned to shove, she came first, but in peace, he was Kazekage. Gaara, the fifth Kazekage. Sabaku no Gaara. A kid, he was no more.

What came out of his mouth was, "I can't. I have work. The Akatsuki..."

Gaara trailed off as she nodded and picked up her ink brush, which had laid on her belly and smeared a smudge of black across the white, and smiled. "Okay. Maybe some other time, then!"

Always so happy. Was he imagining her displacement? Perhaps. Unlike her, Gaara was paranoid.

But Fumiko was Fumiko. Above all else he could count on that. The times slid off her skin like water, even if it made her cold.

"Maybe this Saturday," he said, voice an odd softened rumble, raspy like it was. "But I have a lot of work."

A rejection to all but her. It was startling, to think about it, that he had only known her for a little less than nine years, now that they were both almost sixteen. Nine years was so little in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough, apparently, to read between lines that didn't exist.

"Okay," she said again, and smiled, again.

...

~ "Let's never be in a war, Gaara," she said. "If there's another one, we won't fight in it, or starve like the people in the villages did in the books. We'll, I dunno, grow food or something. Make our own blankets and supplies, like my mom does sometimes. We can hide somewhere secret and play instead. War won't bother us. Okay?" ~

...

"Do you think it's weird that everyone knows when my birthday is?" Fumiko asked, shuffling through papers. They had already eaten, but she hadn't left, putting the tray on the floor. But I have a lot of work to do. An invitation if she'd ever heard one.

"What?"

"It's my birthday in a couple of days. Everyone wants to know when the party is."

"Of course. Mai and the others-"

"No," she said, shaking her head. She could feel her amused bewilderment creeping out across her face. "I really mean everyone. The servants, people out on the streets, they all want to know if I'm having a big party, or something, like the Council makes you do. It's weird."

Gaara grimaced, plucking up a sheet of paper and scanning through it. "They love you now."

"As they love you," Fumiko said, nodding. "It's really super weird, 'cause they never used to even know how old I was. 'The same age as that jinchuuriki,' they always said. 'Who knows.' Now everyone wants to know about me. I just think it's funny."

"You always did say that eventually they would see us as we really were," he replied with a wry smile. "I suppose, we got a little more than we bargained for, didn't we?"

"You think there's gonna be a party?" Fumiko pushed the new stack of printed parchments his way. "I mean, I don't really care either way, if it's a big party thing or not. Uh, would I have to dress up, like you do?"

"Most likely."

"I wonder how comfortable those fancy dresses are," Fumiko wondered out loud, imagining in her head the three-piece suit Gaara had been forced into for appearances. It hadn't looked uncomfortable, but Gaara had grumbled about it so much Fumiko had the impression it was some kind of death trap.

"I wouldn't know," he said seriously. "Anyway, I'm certain you wouldn't wear anything you didn't want to wear. I doubt they're throwing any kind of official party. Mine were planned months in advance. Your birthday is in days."

But Fumiko wasn't paying attention anymore. She was staring blankly at the last five or six sheets of paper at the bottom of the stack Hani had brought in for them to sift through on top of everything else.

"Oh, sugar," was the only thing her brain could come up with. "You're trying to start a Summit."

Gaara stiffened. "There's no way the Hokage could have gotten a letter to me that quickly. I sent the request out merely three hours ago."

"No," she said. "The council's yelling at you."

"What?"

Inappropriate response Should have informed the Coucil Strongly advise against contacting them any further This might start a war Sunagakure's shinobi are perfectly capable of neutralizing the threat ourselves Giving off the appearance that we are weak.

"Formal disagreement," Fumiko amended, shaking the papers slightly so they rustled like stiff leaves. "What are you doing? Calling out to Kage Suna's fought with for years... they're just as likely to attack us as talk to us."

"Yes, maybe so." Gaara sighed. "Unfortunately, Mai was right in saying we cannot do this on our own, even with Konoha's help. It's our one and only shot at peace."

"Can't do what on our own?"

Gaara glanced her way quietly, blue eyes not searching, just staring. "Kill the Akatsuki."

"What's Mai have to do with it?" Fumiko paused. Hadn't Mai been on some kind of spy mission or something? Maybe she'd found something there. But it had been almost a week since she got back. She would have said something, wouldn't she? "Something in Kusa?"

"Something along those lines," Gaara said. "She thinks she might have found a scouting area for Akatsuki members... but she waited too long. It's probably far too late." He paused, eyes closed, then sighed. "No... I shouldn't complain. She at least confirmed that they're after jinchuuriki."

Oh. Poor Mai. Fumiko had no doubt that the lack of action would haunt her sister forever if the Akatsuki got away. What-ifs were tricky things to put away on a high shelf, no matter how pointless they were. "So..."

"She also confirmed that they aren't capturing the tailed beasts by order of tails, which makes it more difficult to track their location... but if we could get in contact with the other Kages, and keep track of their jinchuuriki... Or if the scouting team comes up with anything that we can share..."

"You could figure out where they are," Fumiko finished. She let it run through her brain for a minute. "Sasori is dead. We have no idea who the others are or how many there are."

"We think they travel in two-man teams after the jinchuuriki. Kisame and Itachi, for one. Sasori and Deidara, for another. That's at least three, with Sasori dead. Which means four, if they replaced him. Two teams. There are probably more."

"But they can't all be in one place... can they?" Fumiko chewed her lip. "If they're spread out all over the Nations, it'd be impossible to know how many there are, or where they are, or who they'd attack. And we would never know if we'd gotten them all, unless we caught one. There are too many nuke-nin to narrow it down."

"I have to try, though, Fumiko."

"I know." Fumiko smiled, abandoning the papers for a moment. "It's just been a while since you asked me to tell you what I saw. So they want the biju. They travel in two man teams. It's impossible to know who they are. They're strong. They could be anywhere. They can control spies. Unless you unite the Kage, there's no other way for you to find or fight them on equal terms, and even then it might start a war."

"Are you going somewhere with this, or are trying to talk me out of it?" Gaara's eyes bloomed open, already narrow.

"Hold on," she said, mind clicking and whirring.

They covered their tracks well, but didn't seem to care that they were known. They weren't trying to be subtle at all. The Akatsuki couldn't have taken too awful many of the jinchuuriki, or Suna would have at least heard of it, even if it was just some random person upset over seeing a huge boss fight.

Their clothes were enough to make it obvious they wanted to be known.

Her mind skipped about a thousand pathways, going from point A to point Z in zero seconds.

"If you got a summit together," she started, not sure exactly where it was going, "It would be kind of like the Akatsuki all got in one place, right? Why would they be backing us into a corner if they didn't want us to at least try to come together?"

"You think they want a summit?"

"I think they want a show." Fumiko touched the base of her throat, forgetting for another two seconds that her necklace was gone. "And think about it, Gaara. Even if it didn't work, and we started fighting each other-"

"We would destroy ourselves. Cause mass confusion amongst our ranks."

"Make it easier to hit us," Fumiko said, nodding.

"I'll message the others immediately," Gaara said. "I have to call it off."

"You can't, Gaara," she sighed.

"Why not?"

"Because even though it's possibly an obvious trap... it's the only choice we have. Even if it doesn't work it's better than letting them pick us off village by village and have all the bijuu. You're right; we can't do this ourselves. Anyway... I just have this feeling..." Fumiko squeezed the fabric of her collar. "If we do this and they make a scene, even if we start fighting, well, we have more faces then, right?"

Gaara hesitated. "Those are pretty big ifs."

Fumiko shrugged. "Just what I got. They might not even do anything." Fumiko paused. "Hey, keep it a secret, right? The Summit. And tell the other Kage to keep it a secret. And keep track of everyone they tell if they do, councils and close friends."

"Why?"

"Because either they won't get wind of it and we're in the clear," she explained, "Or we have a really small list to find one of their spies."

"Huh," he muttered. "Dangerous. But you're right."

"Now that that's settled," Fumiko said, picking up her brush and deftly signing off on the 'formal complaints' before dropping them on top of the 'to go out' pile, subdivided to 'to council'. "Let's hope the other villages don't kill us and also hope for the best. Until then," she finished, handing him another sheaf of papers, "we have a lot more work to do if you want Saturday off."

...

~ "Okay," Gaara agreed. In his head, he thought, you will never be in a war. It will never touch you. ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the foreshadowment


	10. Little Shoes

...

"What do you think it's like out there, Gaara?" Fumiko asked. "Outside the walls, I mean?" ~

...

Gaara was a very light sleeper.

He didn't sleep often, either. He liked to stay awake, because he could, not because he had to. Gaara preferred to be awake, mostly because bad things had always happened whenever he fell asleep, but also because he liked to think, and he liked to be aware of his surroundings; he liked to trace the stars out the windows with his eyes and study the paintings and pictures on the walls and he liked to watch Fumiko sleep.

But of course he fell asleep sometimes. It was nice, being able to sleep when he needed to sleep, but being able to stay awake if he wanted to stay awake. The markings on his eyelids and around his eyes hadn't faded in the slightest, which gave him the sneaky suspicion that it was a discoloration from hosting Shukaku at birth.

He'd always sort of known. Fumiko's looked different than his, baggier, less complete, sometimes a more washed out black than his' starkness. Everyone else's insomniac eyes looked different.

Not that Fumiko's had really faded... despite her new sleeping patterns, she still didn't sleep as much as the average person, and although the baggy-ness was fading away, the coloring wasn't. Gaara wondered if that was permanent. After all, the underneath of her eyes had been about that color for the last seven, almost eight years.

Surprisingly, aside from the first three or four nights after he could sleep, his body didn't stay in shutdown mode, like Fumiko's sleep. It regulated. Although it was irritating to get tired without being awake for three weeks straight, instead, every week or so, Gaara did like being able to easily wake from sleep.

A sound at his window? Awake. A servant's shuffling outside his door? Awake. The creak and shifting of the various things in his room? Awake. Even Fumiko's constant shifting- every time she moved across the sheets, be it closer or farther from him- awake... countless times he had saved her falling off the bed.

Random screams in the middle of the night?

Awake. Definitely awake.

"Fumiko, shh, easy," he murmured, petting her hair just like he did every other night or two. "Easy, Fumiko, shh."

Fumiko didn't shh. She just continued to panic with her face inside the fabric of his sleep shirt. He knew already that she knew her surroundings and that she'd just had yet another nightmare, but she was simply allowing herself to panic. Gaara didn't judge. He'd done the same thing.

He had thought they were in the clear a week or so after her first nightmare, but then suddenly and for no reason, the dreams kicked in. Once or twice a week she woke up scared, and sometimes she could remember, sometimes she couldn't. The ones she could recall were often extremely random, patients dying, paintings coming to life, once or twice being eaten by bats, body parts coming off, death of loved ones. Things that had already happened.

There was a lot of stupid blond Akatsuki. Gaara wanted to kill Deidara simply for this.

"Shh, Fumiko, shh." Gaara held her gently, not rocking like she had done for him mainly because she didn't need it to calm down, both of them on their knees, blue blankets helplessly tangled around their legs. His heart still raced.

Gaara figured he would never get used to that, her screaming in the middle of the night. He always woke, mind and body screaming danger! Ready to kill someone, ready to fight, lithe, ready to jump out of bed and defend, and there was always a few seconds of adjustment in the dark before he realized there was no threat, and usually by then Fumiko was awake and launched herself at him.

Eventually she calmed down.

"Don't remember," she muffled into his shirt at his unspoken question. "Sorry."

"It's alright," Gaara said. "Sleep?"

He could feel her face moving against his chest. "No."

Gaara kept petting her hair and glanced up at the windows. Moonlight. Stars. Still dark. Too early to make breakfast if she wanted to share it with anyone, it would be hours before first light. "Play?" he suggested instead.

Fumiko pulled away, face watery, and smiled. "Play what?"

Gaara shrugged. "Constellations?" She liked making new, unorthodox shapes out of stars. It was almost like cloud-watching, only colder. "Board games? Sand-drawing? Forts?"

They had many games for waking-up-too-early-from-nightmares. Who knew they would come in handy after Shukaku was gone?

...

~ Gaara glanced at the towering sandstone. He had already been out there a few times for the Academy training regime, and it wasn't that interesting... just a lot of sand and cactai and the occasional animal. "Why?" ~

...

Mai was bored.

Bored, bored, bored.

Her mom had decided today would be a girls day out. Mai had violently disagreed. She had better things to do anyway, like train, or bug Kankuro into letting her use his blade wheel, or tag after Fumiko and Gaara and be an awkward third wheel. Eh, not really. They were annoyingly different from most couples, it felt more like a threesome whenever she busted in on something.

Ew.

Ewwww. No.

Mai needed brain-bleach.

Anyway, in retaliation her mom had made grapefruit sorbet and bribed her into sitting down at the kitchen table while she tried to braid her now shoulder-length black hair from hell. It really wasn't fair; her father's hair was black and stuck up in the back like bed-head. Girls weren't supposed to have hair like that!

She didn't need to specify that it turned out more than a little crazy, with curling locks poking out of the tight tail at various intervals, and her bangs just sprang back in front of her eyes. Kind of like a ponytail but more under control.

"We should do makeup, too," her mother gushed, obviously over-confident over her blackmailing skills. "It would be fun! Just you and me. Your father won't be back until-"

"No," Mai said flatly.

"But-"

"I said hell no. I'm not wearing makeup, Kankuro and Shorty-sama would never let me live it down."

Her mother pouted, tugged on her braid, then sat in the chair next to her. Mai glanced her way suspiciously, pulling her bowl closer. She was pretty sure her mom didn't like grapefruit...

The older woman sighed. She really did look a lot like Fumiko... more filled out, and with blue eyes instead of brown eyes, and her smile was always softer (and sometimes weirdly sneaky) but still, they shared the same surprisingly hard to tan, barely-darkened skin, the same flat, straight brown hair and bangs, the thin face, nose, everything.

They weren't alike personality wise. With kindness, maybe, but her mother's kind of kindness was fairly universal. Where Fumiko got the hyper-crazy-everyone-shall-be-my-friend personality from, Mai had absolutely no clue. Fumiko looked a little like their father, too, with the brown eyes. Mai knew from pictures that her sister also had their father's smile.

Mai, of course, was stuck looking just like her father, with crazy-ass black hair and tanned skin so she looked like light coffee, and brown eyes with the same damn flecks, and the same square round-ish jawline. Closer and closer to the same irritable personality, although her reasons for being pissy were way more justifiable than his. She had her mother's nose, at least.

Aside from their noses and their eyes, Mai and Fumiko didn't look a whole lot like sisters. Mai wasn't twiggy like her sister. She was filled out average, growing steadily, noticeable tight kunoichi-muscles that Fumiko hadn't quite developed yet. Their demeanors and airs and body language were totally different.

The people who knew knew, obviously. But strangers never figured it out on their own.

"How's Gaara doing?"

"What?"

"I asked how Gaara's doing," her mother said with another small, soft smile that neither of her children had adopted. Well, Fumiko smiled like that, sometimes, when she was sad, but that was it. "I... haven't really gotten the chance to visit him. Every time I try it seems like a bad time."

"Oh, yeah?" Mai took a bite of sorbet. "'Ow long ago was'at?"

"Oh, I don't know," her mother said, and her smile turned a little wry. "Sometime after his return. He seemed awfully distracted."

Mai swallowed, then shrugged. "In his defense, Fumiko was avoiding him. I'da been confused too if I were him. Also he'd just come back to life, so, yeah, there's that. What about Fumiko?"

"The last time I tried that she practically threw me out the door."

"Yeah, well, again, Gaara was gone, sooo..."

"I know you've seen them, Mai. How are they? Talking to each other now? I heard they made up."

Oh, mother, the things I could tell you.

"They're good. Just like always I guess." Mai shrugged again, dipping her spoon into the ice cream soup. The house was hot as hell, and it wasn't even midday yet. It was morning still- what, eight, nine? Maybe. "Fumiko still force feeds him, he still overreacts to everything, and they both hang out in his office and work."

"I miss when they were little things," her mother said wistfully, resting her chin on her palm. "They were so cute."

"Before or after Gaara hit his psycho-killer face?"

Her mother scrunched her nose but didn't scold her. It wasn't like it wasn't true; sometime after like ten he started looking like a badass that wanted to kill you and yours even when he was trying to make small talk. He still looked like a badass, but that was more in a stony cold way that could soften, not like 'Run for the hills! He's smiling!' "Before," she said.

"Oh, so you mean when Gaara used to let you mother-hen him."

"I don't mother-hen!" her mother protested. Then she smiled again. "But he still lets me do it."

"No, affection just scares him so he does what you say."

The older woman barked out a quick laugh. "I suppose so."

"Oh, it's gone," Mai said, slightly disappointed, glancing down at the empty bowl. She pushed her chair back and stood, bringing her plate over to the sink and dropping it in the basin. Subconsciously her hand flickered to her side, checking for the familiar hilt. "I gotta go, the Sibs are probably wondering why I didn't show for breakfast."

Her mother just stared at her with almost sad eyes until Mai got uncomfortable.

"Oookay, well, I'm gonna go train, or something..."

"You're so independent," she sighed, eyes closing in mild anguish. "I never see you anymore, always sneaking off before the sun even rises! It's not fair. You act like you're already grown and can't be bothered with your poor mother."

Mai snorted. "Go mother-hen Gaara."

"And you're so mean!" she said, but it was over-dramatical and teasing. "Oh, fine. Go do your ninja thing."

"Thanks," Mai said dryly, saluting as she walked backward out of the kitchen before turning and making her way down the hall.

Kankuro had eventually gotten someone to fix the wall. Ha, now her father hated every Fuma, not just Gaara, but it was hate in a cowardly way, like, 'I'm mad, but you'll kick my ass if I fight you, so I'm just going to glare and whine whenever you come over'. Mai would call him petty, but had a feeling that if Gaara were any less fear-worthy, it would blow up in a much different way.

Mai reached the door. Turned the knob. Opened the door.

Then stopped.

In her lifetime, she'd had enough people try to trip her that she was now permanently paranoid about what was around her feet. She didn't look at the ground constantly like Fumiko did, but made damn sure to be aware of the sand dunes and whatever happened to be on them. So when she stepped out the door, she paused, toes not two inches from- something.

She glanced down, scowling impatiently.

Then her eyebrows shot up in shock. "Eh?"

Sitting on the step, there was a pot- not a bouquet, an actual freaking pot- of flowers. Mainly red and orange with some yellow here and there, the pot was the big windowsill-kind, flowers side by side and squished together almost like an arrangement. They were cool flowers, too, spotted and mixed-up with two different colors.

"The hell?" Mai put her foot down and glanced around before crouching to stare at them quizzically. No chakra... so... not a trap... Mai narrowed her eyes, then spotted something white and parchment-y sticking between two bushy sets of leaves. Still suspicious but now curious as hell, she tugged it out.

Mitsuwa Mai was printed on the back, in big blocky permanent marker handwriting she didn't recognize. She tore it open from the side with her teeth without bothering to go inside for the letter-opener, then pulled a sheet of paper out. It was nice paper, tinged blue at the edges, like some kinda...

... oh shit.

The Florist said these would fit your 'eclectic personality' the best.

Love,

And that was it. Where 'love,' was the paper was covered in pencil-marks, like whoever had written it had put a million things there and then erased them. There were also teeny rips and graphite in the message itself, places where the eraser had gone through paper.

No 'Dear'. No name.

What the hell did 'eclectic' even mean?!

She forgot about training, she forgot about walking, she forgot about the stupid braid she hadn't taken her hair out of yet. Mai turned right back around.

"MOM!"

...

"Dunno," Fumiko said thoughtfully, eyes wide as she stared at the wall. "My mom says I can't go out there 'till I'm older." ~

...

As it turned out, nobody was planning her birthday party, so Fumiko was doing it herself. A small thing, no big deal, although she was thinking of doing it somewhere other than her old home for once, because she had this little feeling that there were going to be a lot more people in attendance than she invited.

She tapped the pencil against her chin, biting her lip in thought, then wrote more down.

They were in Gaara's office. 'They' being herself, Gaara, and the one or two ANBU she still couldn't sense that were probably in the room as well. Gaara was working diligently and hadn't yet mussed up her nice organization, so Fumiko had decided instead to start putting together ideas. Times, cute invitations, themes, games, foodstuffs...

If she made the party a week from now, she could even invite Lee and the others... hmm...

Ooh, idea! It could be ninja-themed! She could draw little shurikens and kunai on the invitations! And the words could look like... razor wire, or something!

Fumiko flipped the page with brainstorm plan ideas to a blank one and started making invitations, with white blank spots next to things like 'time' and 'place'. She doodled furiously, outlining the card in shuriken, kunai, swords and the stuff, with both Sunagakure and Konohagakure's symbol in it. She found their leaf very fun to draw.

She made the wording very scripty-looking and line-like, edging every word with careful little dot-spikes for the razor part, and put a little tiny ninja at one end to hold the end of the phrase 'Birthday Party! Sweet Sixteen! You're invited!' The words were kinda small because of, well, everything else, but it looked cool.

She liked the first draft so much that she immediately got started on another. Five or ten minutes later when she finished the second one, she paused, then realized it was probably a good idea to make an invite list to see how many she needed. Fumiko flipped to another blank page.

Gaara

Mai

Kankuro

Temari

Lee

Neji

Shikam

She stopped, glancing up at the side of Gaara's face. He didn't seem to notice.

"Are you free next Saturday, too?"

"Perhaps." Gaara muttered. "Why?"

"'Cause I'm planning my birthday party and I wanna invite our friends from Konoha, too."

"Oh." He paused. "Then yes, I'm free."

"Yaay!" Fumiko spaz-hugged him, almost dropping her notebook in the process. "Thankyooou, Gaara! It's gonna be so much fun!"

He smiled slightly without looking up from his work. "I'm sure."

She filled in date with Saturday February 20th.

"Where?" she wondered out loud, chewing on her eraser.

"Huh?"

"Where should I do it?"

"Why don't you do it at home, like you always do?"

"'Cause... because how many reporters do you think'll be there? And random people?"

Gaara grimaced slightly. "True."

"How about that big place you do yours at? They'll probably let me do that."

"I'm the Kazekage. You can have your birthday party wherever you want," he said. "Don't worry about 'they'."

"Oh!" Fumiko blinked, then grinned. "Thanks!"

Gaara didn't say anything else, absorbed in some probably not very interesting paperwork. Tomorrow was Saturday, Gaara's day off... Well, she had a physical that morning, but then they were off. Mai had convinced her to get her, well, everything looked at.

Fumiko made sixteen more invitations and more than tripled her invite list before she started to feel hungry again. Automatically she stuck her pencil behind her ear and reached for her pouch, grasping at nothing.

"I'm gonna go get more dates."

At this Gaara gave her a quizzical half-glance. "All you've been eating lately are dates and peaches. I didn't even know you liked dates."

"Dates are delicious," Fumiko singsonged. "And local!"

Before she left she paused, then leaned sideways and whispered in his ear. He gave her another odd look before muttering back two. Fumiko smiled again and ripped two notebook page invites from her sketchbook and scribbled ANBU #1 and ANBU #2 on the to spaces.

She wondered which was one and which was two...

She whispered again.

He said, "Ceiling."

"These are for you," she announced loudly to the ceiling.

Now Gaara looked at her even stranger and Fumiko almost burst out laughing at the mental message he was sending her, like, oh my Kami you're such an idiot.

"For the ANBU," she explained.

Gaara's eyes said, I know, and that's what scares me.

Gaara had many looks. Very specific, detailed looks, for when they were in public and he didn't want to speak. Unfortunately, she'd gotten those two particular looks often enough to know them by heart.

Ha ha.

She didn't hear anything from the ceiling, but figured they had probably heard her and they were its being ANBU. Fumiko knew of course that they weren't going to show up at her party in uniform... Maybe just in their ninja-casual?

Oh well. She got up, leaving the papers in the corner of Gaara's desk where they wouldn't disturb either his work or her piles, then left for the kitchen to hunt for dates.

...

"It's not that exciting," Gaara reassured her. "It looks just like inside, except... except with less buildings... and more cactai." ~

...

Fumiko was right in the middle of a big complicated canvas with two Sakura trees semi-completed in thin oil paint. The Sakura blossoms were blurred slightly at the edges to make them softer and more dreamlike, actually, everything was blurred to make it softer and more dreamlike...

She was planning on adding three people sitting between them, and grass, and maybe a baby deer and mother next to one of the trunks on the other side of the people, even though she'd never personally actually seen a deer near a Sakura tree.

It would be called Best Friends.

Anyway, she was right in the middle of painting it, with pink and brown-white on her hands and arms, when she remembered that she was about five hundred years behind on her commissions at the Gallery.

Oops.

How long had it been since she'd worked on them last? ... A month and a half? More? Oops. She had completely forgotten. Fumiko remembered seeing them amongst all of the dream-canvases and nightmare-canvases while she had painted death and destruction and fear.

Whoops.

Fumiko hadn't even thought about opening the studio back up... What had happened to all her lunchtime regulars? Her shop-wandering regulars? She didn't really have any buyer-regulars, because paintings were expensive sometimes and awkward to buy in bulk, but she had plenty of miscellaneous-regulars that were probably wondering what had happened to Sunagakure Studio.

What about all the stuff she'd painted? Could she put those on the walls; would they sell, or just creep people out? Definitely not the ones of Gaara's death, those were his just as much as they were hers, but the explosions and everything else, what about those?

Some of her sky pictures would sell, definitely. Just because she couldn't look at clouds anymore didn't mean that others hadn't liked her skylines before. They probably wouldn't all sell, because most of them were sketches anyway, or painted on copy-paper, but she had a lot of them, so she could possibly get rid of a few.

Maybe Satomi's would sell, she wasn't recognizable...

... Satomi.

Fumiko had forgotten all about Satomi.

As she remembered she felt a flush of anger stain her cheeks red. That's right, she had been betrayed by the red-haired girl with the awesome sword that had turned up later to help the Akatsuki. Satomi had been her friend, or at least, Fumiko had thought she was, being so nice and polite and eating her cookies and liking her art...

And then she'd turned around and killed Gaara. Or at least, helped killed Gaara. No- or at least didn't help Gaara, knowing what she knew. That alone was enough to be condemned with, but then what about everyone else who had suffered and died because of it, Chiyo-baa-sama and the missing unit and all those sleeper spies and the ANBU guard unit and the man on her studio roof?

And a little bit of Fumiko, too.

Where was she now? Did she know Gaara was alive? That guilty set look on her face right before she'd left meant she obviously had expected him to die. If she did, would she come back?

That was one apology Fumiko knew she would never accept. That, and maybe if Deidara tried to apologize, or any of the Akatsuki, but that was really super-unlikely... But Satomi's, no.

Never in a million years.

Fumiko took a deep breath and calmed herself down, bit into a date from the bowl on her bed without caring that she was getting pink all over it, then went back to work on Best Friends.

...

Fumiko's eyes widened even more and she grabbed his shoulders suddenly. "You've been?!" she exclaimed. "No fair! I wanna see it too!" ~

...

With her mother's help, Mai had dragged the big planter- seriously, it was probably three or four feet long and a foot wide- into her room. Not her training room with the punching bags and the weapons and stuff, but her room, the room that had always been hers, with another bed and casual clothes, etc. Just because she usually stayed in her training room with an extra bed didn't mean she didn't use this one.

Mai was pretty sure nobody in Suna had a windowsill that big or flat. The stupid thing ended up situated a little to the right of the center of the floor so it caught the sunlight drafting in through her biggest window. It was already watered, the soil dark and damp.

Mai still had no idea what 'eclectic' meant, and Flower Arrangement had been one kunoichi elective she'd completely refused to take. It was Suna, dammit. She wasn't a spy anyway, or not an infiltration-spy at least.

So she'd asked her mother.

"Sorry, Mai," her mother had apologized. "... I didn't really pay attention in Flower Arrangement."

Now she was walking up the sandy, crowded streets, avoiding people and ignoring the street vendors who called after her like she was some kind of tourist, mostly about food, but also some trinkets here and there.

At this point it was like nine thirty, give or take the sun's blinding rays, so she figured she could head up to the Tower and ask to borrow Fumiko's camera and take it to a florist. Uhh... greenhouse-keeper. Where the hell had that guy found a florist in Suna? Maybe she should just go find Shiragiku. Nine thirty on a Friday morning, he was probably working the family greenhouses.

Unsure what else to do with it, she brought the note with her, if only to convince people that that someone had actually given her flowers. Not exactly a love letter, but close enough to be confusing. Fumiko had gotten random flower bouquets before, as had Gaara, as well as various foodstuffs (one or two of them poisoned) and letters of both admiration and hate, but her?

Nah. She must've seemed more like the 'she'll burn them' type to others. Although, given the chance, she'd like to burn the guy's face. It was only brave when you bucked up and stood there when she opened the door. Probably she would have rejected them but... respect. Come on.

This was all speculation. For all she knew, eclectic could mean psycho or stupid. It could be an insult designed specifically so she wouldn't get it, like telling a stupid kid he was too smart for his own good. If it was an insult, though, it was a very elaborately made one, one that she would have to admit was pretty good.

Give the girl flowers that never got flowers on pretty paper so it would seem like an anonymous love letter.

Wait until she goes to the nearest flower shop with her hopes up to ask what the heck the flowers meant.

Bam. Self-esteem blow.

Mai stopped at the big Tower doors. People were always flowing in and out of them, to put in complaints or to get mission scrolls or to send out mail or get mail or request a mission or ask for permission or something or to check in as foreigners or to stay and do politic-y stuff, so they were usually open. Mai slipped inside between two official-looking official people who shot her dirty looks for wrinkling their silk shit that they obviously didn't realize were already full of sand.

She hiked the stairs at a normal pace. She didn't have to do anything today- no missions, no ANBU-missions, no missions to get ready for. She could train later. Thinking back on it, she hadn't sparred with Kankuro for a while. That would be fun. Supposedly he'd upgraded his puppets, so maybe it was about time she try to break them.

The Sibs' living quarters and Kazekage's suites and kitchen were on the fifth floor, so she trekked on up, cursing out random strangers that shoved past her. The only politician she'd ever met that she actually liked was Gaara. Technically Fumiko too, Mai mused, since she was Second on paper, but if Fumiko was a politician Mai would swallow her swords.

Kami, there were too many stairs. Or maybe not enough stairs. They needed more than one set of stairs, for crying out loud, either that or get bigger windows so shinobi didn't have to deal with rude civilians and haughty genin who happened to be high up in other countries. Grr.

Eventually she made her way to the right floor. She personally thought it was strange that the Kazekage family floor was right in the middle. It should have been on the top, y'know, most easily defended, and also because people had to go through the end of the hallway to get to the next stairwell. Though, granted, not many people got past the first floor... it usually thinned out after the guest quarters floor, the one below her.

One, two, three rooms all empty, then the kitchen, then Gaara and Fumiko's Kazekage suite room, keep going down and there was one, two rooms that belonged to Temari and Kankuro, and one more spare. Mai personally didn't know why they needed this many bedrooms... The Kazekage, the Kazekage's wife/girlfriend/fiancee thing, any kids they have.

Temari at least made sense. She was practically Suna and the Leaf's ambassador, she should live here. But as far as Mai knew, Kankuro just ran normal Jonin missions, not anything necessarily relating to the Tower. Gaara was too nice.

At nine forty six- there was a clock on the wall, she didn't get that from the sun, duh- Gaara was working and breakfast was probably over, so Fumiko was probably either in the bedroom or the office. Mai didn't really feel like going up to the office, so she checked the bedroom first.

Fumiko was in there, painting away on a canvas, propped up on an easel surrounded by tarp so she wouldn't get anything on the floor. Mai didn't know why she didn't just set up shop back at her studio, figured it was personal, and so had never really asked. It was weird enough that her sister didn't look at the clouds anymore.

"Hey, Mai," Fumiko said absently. Her elder sister had probably sensed her before she passed Kankuro's room. The streak of green on her cheek danced.

"Hey, sis. Oi, where's your camera?"

"Nightstand."

"Which one?"

"Farthest from the window."

She loped to the other side of the bed, pulled open the drawer, and yep, there was Fumiko's latest disposable camera. "Hey, do you ever print pictures from these things?"

Distracted half smile. The green stretched. "Yeah, I'm working on an album."

"Uh-huh." Mai paused, eyeing the newest painting. Beautiful, something that if it sold could pay for an A-rank or even S-rank. "Why's there deer in that? Miss Konoha?"

"A little. I was thinking of mailing invitations today."

"Invitations for what?" Mai stopped her mouth to let her brain click. "Ohh, right. B-day and all. Do you know when you're doing it? If you're inviting Shikamaru and the rest they'll need at least three or four days to-"

"Saturday."

"Wha? Tomorrow?"

"Nooo," Fumiko murmured. "Next Saturday."

"Ah. Okay then." Fumiko was in artist mode now. Another hour or so and she wouldn't even understand what people were saying to her. Mai sighed. If ever her sister got assassinated, it would be because she was either sleeping, or in stupid artist-mode. "I'll just... go, then."

"Bye, Mai."

"Going to your physical tomorrow, right? Those bruises are still there."

"Yep, Mai."

Mai snorted. "Okay, see you."

"..."

Next she made a detour to the kitchen for a snack, where- shocker- she found Kankuro eating hamburger steak, which really was actually a little surprising... Fumiko must have made it for dinner the previous night. She was pretty sure neither of the Fuma boys knew how to cook instant ramen, let alone hamburger steak.

"Any jerky?" Mai called from the pantry.

"Think so." Kankuro paused with his fork partway to his mouth. "Where were you this morning, anyway?"

"Jeez, I come to breakfast for two weeks and suddenly everyone expects it."

"... Well, yeah. That's kind of a rout-"

"Admit it," Mai huffed, crawling up the wall to reach the top shelf of the pantry. Whoever had put it there sucked, but she wasn't about to ask for help. "You just missed me, Baka-Kankuro."

"Uh-huh," he said dryly. "Don't know what I'd do without you, brat."

"Five year difference," Mai snapped, looking back at him over her shoulder and flicking her finger between them. "Freaking five year difference!"

He laughed and she spat at him before turning to reach for the jerky box. Was anyone here even that tall? Maybe Kankuro, but seriously, come on. She knocked over two boxes and a small bag of rice before she managed to close her fingers around three sticks.

"Need some help over-"

"Shut up! I can get it myself!" she muttered angrily.

"Ooh, touchy." Kankuro laughed. Mai dropped down to the floor. "So, just out of curiosity, why weren't you here?"

Mai sighed, taking a step closer to the table and stretching her arms over her head to crack her spine. "My mom wanted a girl's day."

"Huh," he said. "That explains a lot. I was almost afraid to ask about the braid."

"Gahh! Stupid braid!" Mai growled, reaching for the tail end with her free hand and yanking out the ponytail holder. She shook out the braid until it mostly freed itself, then slid the band over her wrist. "Kept forgetting about that. Anyway, when I went to get away-"

"What, no makeup? Didn't paint your nails?"

Mai ignored him and plowed on. "-When I stepped out of the house there was this big ass planter-"

"Planter?"

"Yeah, like a big pot for a windowsill."

"A pot?" Kankuro frowned. "Wait a second, what?"

"A flower pot," Mai said irritably. "Anyway it was full of these really cool puffy flowers with a bunch of fire colors in the petals and a note. I asked my mom, but she didn't know if they meant anything."

"... Flowers."

"Yeah."

"For you...?"

"Yeah, it had my name on the envelope."

"Lemme see."

"No!" Mai scowled. "I'm gonna take pictures for Shiragiku to see-"

"No, no, lemme see the note!"

"I said no!"

"Can I see the flowers then?" Kankuro pushed his plate away and stretched out on the table to rest his head on his arms. He looked like a big smug puppy with face makeup. "Do you know who sent them?"

"No. Didn't say."

"No I can't come or no you don't know?"

"Both!" Mai tore open a packet of jerky and ripped at it with her teeth. "Not gonna let you follow me around everywhere, creep!"

Kankuro arched an eyebrow. "You used to follow me around."

Mai bristled. "Because..! That was because I was bored as hell and didn't have anyone better to train with!"

"Ditto," he said. "I'm bored as hell and don't have anyone to train with. Temari's off on some mission and Gaara's working." He sighed, a big heave of his shoulders that looked overdramatic lying against the table. "Gaara's always either working or with Fumiko. We never go on missions together anymore."

"Boo-hoo. He's the Kazekage," she pointed out. "Even if Fumiko wasn't here, Gaara wouldn't be able to go on missions with you."

"Ahh, the good old days..."

Mai groaned. "The hell is up with everyone, going on about the good old days!"

"... What?"

"Doesn't matter." Mai shook her head and flicked the empty jerky wrapper at his nose. It missed but landed on his arm, so either way he glared at her. She glanced at the clock, then realized she'd been in the Tower for almost half an hour. It was a little past ten in the morning. "Gotta go, people to see, things to do-"

Kankuro raised his head a little. "Is your dad home?"

"Why?"

"'Cause I'm bored, and that's the only person I won't get arrested for punching for no reason."

Mai snorted, hefting the little green bag on her shoulder and tearing open another packet. "No, he's not. I don't think so, anyway."

"What's he do?"

"Not really sure." Mai shrugged. "Don't care, really."

"What are you gonna do if the flower guy shows up?"

"Probably punch him for being stupid." Mai grinned. "Why?"

"Just curious." Kankuro lifted his head slightly. "I'm serious, though, I have nothing to do. My puppets are all perfect. No missions. Bleh."

"Eat?" she suggested.

He glared and she barked a laugh.

"Oh, fine! I'll be bored later anyway. But you can't ditch me when Shiragiku starts to talk about plants. And you have to spar with me. Have you fireproofed your puppets yet?"

"Trying to, although I'm sure you've learned something new."

"I always do." Mai kicked his thigh none too gently. "Now come on. Get up."

"Oww."

...

"Then, let's go." ~

...

"Dahlias?" Shiragiku said, peering at the camera's image. "Interesting choice."

"What's a dahlia?"

"A flower, stupid."

"Shut up, Baka-Kankuro, I know that!"

Shiragiku shook his head a little. "Dahlias can represent many things," he said softly. "The message can range from a sign of warning, to change, to travel, to even a portent of betrayal. Usually, given as a gift, they compliment a person's wild personality."

"Huh," Mai muttered. Kankuro said nothing. "So it's not a death threat? A warning and betrayal and all that jazz."

"I don't think so," Shiragiku disagreed. "The red suggests a passionate love born of beauty, fire, and courage. Red flowers show no restraint, symbolizing desire and devotion."

"Oookay," Mai said, making a face. "What about the other stuff?"

"There's mostly red," Shiragiku said, "But almost half of it is orange. Orange is both red and yellow, passion and happiness. An orange dahlia might represent pride, energy, and confidence. Most likely, this is the compliment of the arrangement. Orange is not bashful, Mai-chan. It shows passion for life. There is also yellow, which suggests happiness."

"So, what? No flower is one color, what's that mean?"

Shiragiku allowed a small smile. "In essence, whoever gave this to you is saying that they love and adore your confidence, pride, energy, youth, and wildness. You make them happy and passionate."

"Happy and passionate, huh?" Mai wrinkled her nose. "That sounds really gross and dirty."

"Whatever the case, Mai-chan," Shiragiku said as he handed her back the camera. "Whoever sent you these appears to know you well and appreciates your personality."

"Knows me well?" Mai scoffed. "I dunno about that. Must be a stalker or something. I don't recognize the handwriting."

"Forgery?" Kankuro suggested, then grinned. "I suggest you find this guy. You'll never find anyone else so stupid."

"Quiet. At least I have a secret admirer." That sounded weird even in her own mouth. She had a secret admirer? That was so bizarre. Who was it? One of those weirdos in her genin class that had suddenly taken an interest? Someone she'd never met? Someone she had met? The only guys she really knew were Shiragiku, Eishi, Kankuro and Gaara. A few fully grown jonin and older Chuunin. Some ANBU.

She didn't exactly have a huge friend group.

Shiragiku tucked a bit of white-blond hair behind his ear. They stood inside one of Sunagakure's very few greenhouses, and all around people who looked like Shiragiku with pale skin and pale hair and green diamonds on their foreheads bustled about, tending to various plants. They all had freckles instead of tans. They looked like they belonged in Land-of-Snow, not Suna.

"I have to get back to work, but, Mai-chan, one more thing." he said quietly.

"What?"

"Those flowers were planted and there were quite a few of them."

"Yeah, so?"

"That means they wish to have a long and lasting relationship with you," he explained. "Rooted rather than cut. This was very thought out. We don't grow dahlias here, so these had to be imported. Whoever sent you these is quite taken with you, Mai-chan."

"Quite taken," Kankuro teased. Mai punched his shoulder and he yelped. "Ow!"

"Urggh," she whined. "This is so weird."

Without another word to either Shiragiku or Kankuro, Mai spun on her heel to escape the stuffy, humid greenhouse and go first to the Tower to return the camera and then to the training grounds to break things.

When all else failed, breaking things was always a great way to clear your head.

...

"But... but I'm not allowed!" ~

...

Ahh, this was familiar.

She'd been painting.

And now she was in bed waking up.

Fumiko yawned and turned, nudging the arm slung over her body. She only had half a second to register Gaara's sleeping face before his eyes blinked open, and then they were staring at each other. Fumiko smiled. Gaara yawned, which was so incredibly adorable and cute that Fumiko smiled even more.

"Good morning," she said cheerily, voice foggy from disuse.

"Good morning," he rumbled back.

"What time is it?" she said and tried to roll over, but Gaara's arm tightened on her shoulders. His eyes flicked over her head to the clock.

"Mmm. Seven fifteen."

"My appointment's at eight," she reminded him happily, not really particularly worried about getting up. "Did I fall asleep painting, again?"

"Yes," he said. "I came in at two or three in the morning and you were on the floor with a paintbrush in your hand. You fell off your chair. Which is why you're still wearing your day clothes." His voice changed to a mutter as his face heated slightly. Gaara was still easily embarrassed by anything other than normal contact. Like this. Though, he was also tired...

"Means I need to shower," she murmured, still smiling. She hadn't thrown the blanket off them in sleep, so it was still comfily warm. That mixed in with Gaara's desert scent and coolness made her want to go back to sleep or maybe just lie here for another hour or three... but then she would miss her physical and Mai would get upset.

But Gaara saved her from making the decision and rolled onto his back, untangling his arms from both her and the blankets to wipe his face. "Eh..."

Fumiko rolled out of bed, sliding out of the blankets and sheets onto her hands and knees. She shuffled about in the dark for her prosthetic, which Gaara had probably put by the side of the bed. Light streamed in from the windows on the other side of the bed but didn't quite reach the spot she eventually found it and her sock in.

She fell back on her butt and shuffled on the material before sliding on the prosthetic. She would just have to take it off again in a few seconds when she got in the shower, but Fumiko didn't really feel like hopping all the way to the bathroom. Her body was still warm with sleep.

As she hobbled to the bath, Fumiko could hear the rustled, semi-disgruntled sounds as Gaara got up himself, kicking off the covers and yanking off his long-sleeved sleep shirt as he padded to the nearby closet. He would probably take a shower later.

Fumiko sang Cha-tsumi as she washed her hair and scrubbed at her skin with the loofah. She still had to be gentle with it, as the still fading bruises still hurt. She didn't really need to go to a physical; she was a doctor herself and knew that while pressure-bruises were worse than normal-bruises, she had no more internal bleeding and that they would fade entirely in another week or two, but figured she might as well.

When she finished, Fumiko flipped off the water and levered herself out onto the toilet where she could dry off her leg with a nearby white towel and stick her prosthetic back on. The bathroom was full of steam as she wrapped the towel around herself and eased to a stand. When she opened the door, it rushed out into the bedroom.

Gaara was just finishing the ties on his vest. He hadn't yet tied on his gourd, nor had he brushed his messy bed-head hair. They traded places, Fumiko stepping into the closet and Gaara heading into the bathroom to brush his teeth and comb his hair.

Fumiko dressed quickly in her white shirt and black shorts. She struck off back into the bathroom, toweling her hair, and found Gaara washing his face. He glanced her way with drippy eyes and handed her her toothbrush. Fumiko squirted on toothpaste and stuck it in her mouth.

Mm. Strawberry.

"Fanks," she slurred. Gaara smiled slightly and nodded.

Fumiko spat, rinsed off her toothbrush, and then brushed again with plain water to get the rest of the foam off her teeth, Gaara reached past her for the handtowel to dry his face, then picked up the comb to sort of straighten out his hair enough to be acceptable. Fumiko spat again, rinsed off her toothbrush and leaned back over the sink to put it back in the cup before grabbing her hairbrush and skipping out to fix her hair on the bed so she didn't have to stand.

Eventually another weight settled behind her and stole the hairbrush from her fingers. Gaara seemed to have found an interest in her hair, and had taken to brushing and/or touching it whenever she tried to fix it on her own. Which Fumiko didn't really mind, as it felt good and was easier than brushing it herself.

"So what do you want to do today?" she asked, tapping her fingers against the wood of her prosthetic. "After my physical."

"I'm not sure," he replied.

"Hmm," she hummed. "What aboouuut... uh... swings?"

"Swings?" Gaara sounded surprised. "It's... been a while since you last suggested that."

"Yeah, I know." she said thoughtfully. "It kinda sucks that we're getting too big for it. Or at least, you are... I wonder if anyone else uses them now..."

"I doubt it," he said, fingers picking gently through a knot. "That place isn't very well known."

"Maybe. It'd be kinda funny, though. Think they'd be outcasts?"

"There's only two, they'd have to be outcasts," Gaara said with a smile in his voice. Fumiko laughed. "What else do you want to do?"

"Ice cream!"

"Walk outside the wall..." Gaara mused, and from the way the brush paused Fumiko assumed he was looking out the window. "The weather is nice today. Not as hot as usual."

"Ohh, and I need to send invitations today. Wanna help?"

Gaara didn't say anything, so she guessed that he had nodded and forgotten hat she couldn't see it. She giggled.

"What?" He sounded puzzled.

"Did you nod?"

"Yes... oh."

Fumiko laughed so hard she snorted, then laughed harder. Eventually she was shaking so badly Gaara abandoned her hair and laughed as well, a deep rumbly noise in his chest that was more like a chuckle. She liked it when he laughed.

She fell back on his legs, not really caring about her still-wet hair, still laughing. He smiled down at her, a tiny not-quite-grin one-sided smirk on his lips. Bitsy compared to her face-consuming grins, but for Gaara it was like a meltdown. When she finally calmed down, she sighed. "Gotta get up."

Gaara looked over at the clock. "We have six minutes to get to the hospital."

"Sugar. Carry me?" she said hopefully, staring up at him. He leaned down a little bit and smiled again, less smirk-y.

"Fine, now get up."

"Yes!" Fumiko exclaimed, shooting up and swinging her legs off the side of the bed before standing. She grabbed Gaara's hand and tugged at it until he stood. "Come on, come on come on! I'm gonna be late for my physical!"

...

"Well... usually I wouldn't let you either, but it's not that dangerous." Gaara frowned. "I think she just doesn't want you to get lost..." ~

...

Ohh, she had missed getting carried by his sand. It was great.

At the physical, there was a lot of basic stuff: blood pressure, height, weight, etc. To Fumiko's delight, she'd gained another five pounds. Unfortunately, she hadn't really grown at all. She was still too short to reach the cereal. After all that, the doctor had started feeling about at her bruises, examining and reexamining her neck and arms.

Now Gaara was waiting for her out in the lobby, probably trying not to get pulled into a conversation by the friendly receptionist, because Fumiko had to take her shirt off so the female doctor could look at her ribs.

"Hmm," she said. "Well, I don't think you should worry too much, Lady Fumiko."

"Fumiko."

Sachi nodded absently. "Everything seems fine. These should be gone in another two or three weeks, although there might still be discomfort over the next month or so, give or take a few days. Although, I'm glad you decided to come in."

"That's what I figured. My sister wanted me to get it double-checked."

"That's a very good idea," she advised. "Especially in your case... any additional discomfort in your ribs or ankle?"

"Not really, but I've been getting sick."

"Sick?"

"Yeah. I think I caught the flu last week."

"Well, it is going around. Make sure to wash your hands more often and keep some aspirin on hand in case you catch it again." The doctor pushed against her shoulder lightly. "Now, please lie back down, Fumiko-sama. I want to check your ribs really quickly to make sure they've healed properly."

"Oh, sure."

Fumiko lied down on her back. Her torso grew warm with the doctor's chakra, starting at her chest and then slowly travelling down until it hit her navel.

There was a sudden, sharp gasp.

"What? What is it?" Fumiko glanced at Sachi's now white face. "What's wrong?"

The doctor seemed to have lost her words.

"What?" Now Fumiko was mildly worried. Was there still something wrong with her insides, something that maybe she'd missed in her first diagnostic a month or so ago? Was it bad? Nothing felt broken, but maybe she'd damaged a nerve in her fight with Sasori and-

"F-fumiko-sama..." the doctor muttered weakly. "When... when was your last menstrual cycle?"

...

"Okay, let's go look then!" ~

...

"Gaara Gaara Gaara Gaara Gaaraaa!"

Gaara jumped, head whipping in the direction of Fumiko's voice as she tore out of the hall into the lobby. The receptionist paused, forgetting her paperwork for a moment. Every head in the waiting area turned to see what was going on.

"Wha-"

Fumiko hit him hard, skidded slightly on the slick tile, and as soon as she steadied herself grabbed his wrist. "Oh my sugar Gaara we need to go find mom and Mai right now it's super important come on come on come-"

"Wait a second, let me pay for-"

"Nooo! Right now, we gotta go right now-!"

"What's wrong?" Gaara was getting worried. Fumiko just continued to tug at his arm as hard as she could, but he wasn't moving. The receptionist looked startled, along with everyone else in the vicinity. "What-"

"Now!"

"But-" Gaara was starting to move, stumbling along as she pulled them out of the building, face inscrutable, mostly exerted and red from dragging him. "Why-"

They cleared the wood doors falling out into the sandy desert city. There weren't that many people around this particular area, as there weren't any vendors or shops near the hospital. It generally wasn't appreciated. Gaara's eyes were wide, saying things that Fumiko didn't really seem to be hearing as her prosthetic slipped through the sand.

And then suddenly she stopped and turned and smiled so brilliantly, tears forming in her eyes, that his brain went stupid. His mouth went desert-dry or no reason whatsoever.

"... What..." he murmured.

"Gaara," she said, voice high and strained with excitement, like she could barely say the words. "Gaara, we, I... I'm pregnant!"

...

Gaara found himself dragged to the stairwell on the walls, but then he had to help her climb without falling. She still wasn't quite used to the new prosthetic and stumbled often. When they reached the top, the sun was already setting. Fumiko grinned. "Wow," she said. ~

...

Gaara's brain was still spinning when Mai tried to punch him.

"Mai!" Mrs. Mitsuwa shrieked, even though the sand blocked it easily.

"Sorry, sorry, had to," Mai said, and she was grinning so widely she looked insane. "Kami, I, Kanmi, Fumiko, I can't believe it!"

Fumiko was crying, now, and Gaara hadn't said anything since he heard it aside from one roaring "What?!" that he was pretty sure they heard in the Land of Iron. The other Mitsuwa girls were squealing and screaming and jumping around.

Gaara, initially, as his brain had tried to process, had fired with some kind of strange abnormal pride, and this unbelievable oh my Kami kind of happiness that made his cheeks burn with excitement.

And then everything had shut down with fear. Now he was trapped between the two.

Gaara personally knew all the things that could go wrong, the worst being that he ended up like his father Rasa, bitter and alone with a child he barely knew... But at the same time, he was going to be a dad holy hell.

"I'm going to be a mother!" Fumiko wailed happily, an echo of his thoughts. She was dissolved in a spastic kind of excitement, limbs like vibrating jelly. If you touched her anywhere you could feel her thrumming heartbeat. Gaara in comparison knew he looked stupid with disbelief but he couldn't help it.

They were inside the Mitsuwa household, where thank Kami Mai and her mother both were without her father, and there was Kankuro for some reason, standing awkwardly off to one corner, face as white as school glue, which contrasted nicely with the worn purple face paint.

A small part of his brain reminded him that the press in Suna and the Council was going to take this whole hing very, very badly, but the rest of his body drowned the thought and thought a million other things instead.

"How far are you?!"

"Almost two months!"

"OhmyKami, honey!"

"Boy or girl?!"

"They're not sure yet, but two, Mai! Twins!"

"Congratulations, sis!"

"Thank you! Sugar, sugar, I can't, I can't even- Gaara!"

She leaped on him again, as she had done at least five or six times since realizing, and he lost all his air again, but touching her spurred his arms to hug her, and he did. All their free day plans had scattered out the window.

"Names!" her mother shrieked. "You need to come up with baby names!"

"Forget names, she needs a baby shower!"

"I'm going to be a grandmother!"

"Oh, right! I'm gonna be an aunt, I totally forgot!"

"Gaaaraaa, we're gonna be parents!" Fumiko cried. "Parents!"

...

~ And Gaara had to agree. ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES.
> 
> I'M NOT SORRY


	11. Good News

...

~ "Mommy, why does Daddy still hate Gaara?" ~

...

Gaara was scared.

He wasn't saying anything, but Fumiko could tell.

She could sense it in the way he touched her like wedding china, and in the way he wasn't blushing, and in his questions, and in the tea and the peach he brought into the bedroom for her, and the way that he stared out the windows in the darkness.

She wouldn't admit to knowing everything he was scared of, but she knew that a big part of it was about her. Losing her. Gaara's own mother had died in childbirth, leaving him with a father who hated him for it. And there were a few concerns- twins for a first pregnancy, for one; her size, for a second; and the ever-concerning chakra disability that could possibly hurt the babies.

He didn't want her to die, and he didn't want to be like his father.

But he was also excited and happy, just like she was, Fumiko could read it in his teal blue eyes and feel it in his hugs. He wanted this. That alone proved that he would be nothing like his father, Rasa. She almost wanted the Council to just try and use their children- Gaara wouldn't let them within six miles of her, let alone hurt her.

And that was why she was excited, because this would work, and because she loved him, and because she loved the little things inside of her, because she was happy and he was an amazing person and these kids no matter what the circumstances would have an amazing life, she would make sure of it. She could already picture them.

Kami, she could barely think around it. The excitement felt like a mounting explosion. Kids- twins! Fumiko couldn't wait to play with them and feed them bottles and hear them laugh. Would they look more like her, or Gaara? She wondered if they would have the same tanuki-markings as Gaara, since those seemed to be more like birthmarks and birthmarks ran rather strongly in bloodlines...

"Why don't you sleep?"

Gaara's voice was soft. Fumiko blinked, and smiled.

"I'm too excited to sleep."

Gaara rolled onto his side. He was definitely a side-sleeper when they were together, he liked to watch, even though she knew he liked to think she didn't know. He looked at her for a second, not saying anything, then reached out and touched his thumb to her smile, rubbing the corner. Fumiko's smile twitched, curving higher.

"I honestly can't believe this," Gaara admitted in a whisper across the pillows.

It hadn't even been a full day since the news. So much for their super-fun free day, it had jumped out the window in favor of excited jabbering with family and going home and being quietly happy in the bedroom- well, he was quietly happy, Fumiko knew she'd been a total spaz for the rest of the day, but it made Gaara smile, anyway.

"I know." Her words were slightly muffled where he was touching her lips.

"I can't believe you," he said in an even softer voice, eyes liquid. "That I have you."

Her heart turned absolutely to a puddle of jelly. Gaara wasn't really a very outwardly affectionate person, so for him to say that... She shuffled closer over the sheets. Gaara's hand slid as she did so down her jawline until he was touching her ear instead. "You won't lose me, either."

It looked like he wanted to say I know, but he didn't. "Mm."

"No, you won't." She kissed him. "This will turn out perfectly, you'll see."

He smiled, almost amused. "You don't know that."

"Yes I do." Her own smile creeped to a grin. "I just know these things, Gaara."

"Your sense of intuition is terrible."

"Shhhshh. Trust me."

"I trust you." He blinked. "Just not..."

"Everything else, yeah." Fumiko curled against him, nose against his neck. "It'll work, though."

His fingers went from her ear to her back, which he rubbed. Fumiko treasured these rare moments, where he wasn't embarrassed to touch and be touched. Of course, she treasured the not-so-rare moments where he burst into flames being flustered just as much... but still. "You know," he said slowly. "We'll have to tell your dad."

Fumiko stiffened, then sighed and forced herself to relax. "Yeah, I know." She closed her eyes and breathed in desert and Gaara. "And, you know, we'll have to tell Suna, and the Council, too."

She could almost feel his grimace. "Right. I know."

"Well, as long as you know."

"Stop laughing," Gaara muttered. Fumiko bit her lip to stop from giggling, but she knew he could feel it. "It's not funny."

"Everyone's gonna be so mad," she managed in between her giggles. "The newspapers are gonna go crazy. Joseki'll try to murder me for ruining your reputation, I'll bet. I don't think he likes me very much."

"He wouldn't get very far," Gaara said, although it lacked the dangerous growl one might have expected. Apparently her good humor was infectious. "Although I'd like to see him try." Gaara brought his other hand up to flick a strand of hair out of her eyes. "You're a very strange girl."

"And you're a very strange boy."

"From anyone else, an insult." He sighed, then pulled the blanket up over her shoulders before settling his hand back against her back. "Now go to sleep."

"But Gaaraaa," she whined. "I'm too excited, I told you! Butterflies in my stomach!"

"No, children in your stomach," he corrected. "And you're always excited."

"But this is different!"

"How so?"

"... Fuma Gaara, you know exactly how so!"

"Aa," he almost chuckled. It made his chest vibrate against her hands. "Now go to sleep."

And because he told her to, and because she felt completely safe in his arms, and also because in reality she'd been fighting her fluttering eyes for the past two or so hours, she did.

...

~ Mai's mother blinked, pausing and setting down her duster. There had just been a sandstorm, and there was sand everywhere that had seeped in through the cracked window. Mai didn't really know why they couldn't get it repaired, but her mom said they couldn't. ~

...

Gaara felt like he'd only slept for two seconds- the result of sleeping without dreams- when he was jolted to consciousness by a sudden, violent retching sound.

He levered up on one arm, wiping the sleep out of his eyes and trying to make his eyes respond. As they did he realized that Fumiko was rolled over on her stomach, throwing up over the side of the bed, where hopefully nobody had moved the trash can.

At least it wasn't five AM this time. From the looks of the sunlight peeking through the windows, red and orange, he would guess it was probably seven or seven thirty. He sat up all the way. The blanket was gone, half kicked of the side of the bed and half tangled around Fumiko's legs.

She retched one more time, wet, uncomfortable sounds, and then she coughed twice, then straightened, pushing up on the bed to fumble onto her knees. Fumiko wiped her mouth, glancing back, still looking a little green.

"Oh, hey, Gaara," she said, voice raspy. "You're awake."

He stared at her.

"What? Is it still on my face?"

"No." Gaara shook his head. "At least this makes sense now."

"Yep." She rolled so she was leaning against the headboard. She smiled somewhat wryly. "Guess so, huh? Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up with my puking sounds. I'm glad none of the maids moved that trash can..."

"It's alright," Gaara said. "I most likely don't have too much to do today anyway."

"Oh." Fumiko frowned. "My mouth tastes awful. I'm hungry."

"Then eat something."

"Noo. I'll throw up again."

"Then what do you want to do?" Now Gaara was sliding out of bed, not bothering to flick on the nightstand lamp. It wasn't dark enough. The sand at his feet scuffled and drifted slightly as he stood.

"... Eat..."

"But won't you get sick again?"

"Ne... hold on one sec-!"

He could hear her flopping back on her stomach as she threw up again. Gaara sighed and glided around the bed and the easel with an almost finished canvas propped up on it until he could sit on the other side of the bed and pull her hair away from both her face and the trash bin.

When she finished, she drew a huge raggedy breath, then gave a weak laugh. "This is going to be so much fun, I can tell," she said.

Gaara draped her long brown hair over her shoulder and helped her straighten back up against the headboard. When she was finally settled he raised his brow. "Was that sarcasm, Fumiko?"

"Umm... half," she replied with another tipping smile. "Now I'm starving!"

...

~ "What, honey?" ~

...

Breakfast was awkward and silent and very red.

"I can't-..."

Kankuro went silent as she and Gaara walked in, Fumiko yawning and wiping her eye. She would have been stumbling, but she was leaning on Gaara, who supported her by the shoulders and her other elbow. Instantly Temari tch'd and looked away with her hand on her chin, grinning.

Mai raised a hand in greeting. Fumiko waved back.

She got the feeling that the only reason Kankuro was here was for the breakfast, judging by the bright fire color of his face and the strange intensity with which he was studying the wood grain table. It made her feel kind of bad, because she wasn't actually planning on making breakfast at all, just to totter to the table and eat peaches and maybe use the fruit bowl as a waste bin.

Gaara helped her ease down into the chair.

"What's this, Fumiko?" Temari asked teasingly. "Feeling pregnant already?"

"Anou... just feel sick."

"Aw, but my baby brother's so sweet, helping you out," the eldest Sand Sibling sang as Gaara went to get the extra four or five peaches in the basket by the fridge. He shot her a dirty look, scowling, face red. "Kankuro told me you're having cute little twins!"

"I never said cute," Kankuro muttered.

"Of course they'll be cute," Temari huffed dismissively, waving a hand at him. "Gaara and Fumiko? No doubt."

"Here," Gaara said, handing her a peach and dropping the other four in the fruit bowl. On the table in front of her he placed a decent sized ceramic bowl, probably in case she got sick again. He sat down in the seat beside her.

"Thanks, Gaara," she said happily and bit into it. It was sweet and sticky and a little warm and quelled her nausea almost instantaneously. She took another bite and wiped her chin. He handed her a napkin. "Thanks," she said again.

"So cuute," Temari singsonged. "Baby brother-"

"Stop talking," Gaara said almost sulkily. His face was almost the same color as his hair, nearly camouflaging his kanji. Like Kankuro, he took refuge in the swirly pattern of the kitchen table. "Please don't say another word."

"Anyway, Fumiko," Mai butted in. "Mom wants to know when you're having the baby shower."

"Uh..." Fumiko glanced at Gaara, who stared steadfastly at the table without noticing, then laughed. "I don't know, actually. I guess we have to tell the Council first, and then me and Gaara can-"

"Oh, screw the Council," Mai groaned. "That stupid bunch of geezers make everything so much harder."

"But Mai, if we don't tell them and I start to show or I throw a party, I think it'd be worse." She thought for a moment. "But if I'm inviting everyone to Suna anyways, I might as well try to have it while they're here."

"You mean like, instead of your birthday party?" Mai considered this, then shrugged. "I were you I'd specify both." She grinned a shark grin. "Betcha you get so many presents you don't have to go baby shopping."

Fumiko took another bite of peach, chewed, then swallowed. "Aren't I supposed to wait until I know if they're boys or girls or both?"

Temari, sensing another opening to poke fun, leapt back into the conversation. "Ne, don't worry about it, Fumiko," she said, flashing a grin. "If someone gets you the wrong kinda clothes you can always try again!"

Gaara dropped his head into his arms with a muffled "Something-something kill you."

"Are you gonna make food or what?" Kankuro said finally. "I'm starving and this is really awkward."

Gaara said something else.

"What?"

"He said I'd probably puke in your food," Fumiko translated apologetically. "I really don't feel well today, sorry."

"Don't you dare leave, baka," Mai scolded, swatting at one of his cat ears. "We still need to brainstorm."

"Brainstorm what?" Fumiko asked curiously.

Her little sister shrugged again. "Well, we're betting on dad's reaction," she admitted. "And also trying to figure out if we should, like, tie him down, or something fun like that, when we tell him." Mai eyed her critically. "You are going to tell him, right?"

"Yep," Fumiko sighed. "I just haven't figured out how yet."

Gaara picked his head up a little. His cheeks were still red. "I'll go with you."

"Damn right you will," Mai said. "Me too. And Kankuro."

"Why do I have to go?"

"I thought you said you wanted to punch him."

"I haven't actually met your dad yet, Mai," Temari said, attention snagging away from Gaara's dilemma. "Or your mother, but I've heard a lot of stories from my brothers." She narrowed her eyes. "Fumiko, forgive me if this is rude, but he seems like a bit of a-"

"Asshole, bastard, jerk?" Mai questioned happily. "No good lowlife?"

Temari nodded. "Gaara, seriously, is it safe to let-"

A growl slipped from his throat, low and dangerous. His blush mostly faded, leaving behind an angry flush. "I've dealt with him before, Temari. I can do it again."

"Good, because I was kinda thinking we should do it today," Mai said.

Gaara looked at her sharply, as did Fumiko.

"What?" she said.

"Why? Gaara said at the same time.

Mai toyed with an abandoned chopstick, picking it up and rolling it in her fingers. "I figure that if you want to have your party and stuff, might as well get it over with. Then you don't have to worry about it, sis. I would tell him myself, but..." Angry grin. "He'd probably show up at the Tower and make a huge fuss and then the news would be out before Gaara could formally tell the Council. Then it sounds like a scandal."

"But... couldn't I wait until..." Fumiko bit her lip. "Until..."

"Until what? He'll have the same reaction no matter how valid your argument is," Mai pointed out. "And anyway, Gaara's going to be super busy like he always is starting tomorrow, and then you'd have to wait until the weekend to tell him and muck up your party, or tell him without Gaara."

Mai was right. The only logical thing to do was to it today. They had all day.

But...

She didn't want to talk to her father... let alone tell him this. The last time they'd spoken... he'd practically disowned her. Fumiko didn't really want to do that again, nor did she want to put Gaara or Mai or her mother or Kankuro through another one of his episodes. She hadn't tried to approach him after Deidara and Sasori, either, mainly because if she was honest with herself, she was afraid her father's viewpoint wouldn't have changed at all in the face of Gaara's sacrifice. The idea made her nauseous again.

"We don't have to if you don't want to," Gaara said with a hint of concern in his voice, raising his head. His embarrassment was forgotten. "I'm sure we could do this without having you speak with him."

She picked at the peach pit with her fingernails guiltily. "No, I..."

"He's caused you enough pain," Gaara said. "You shouldn't have to put up with him any more."

Fumiko took a deep breath, then sighed, biting her lip. "No, I will," she said finally. "It's not fair to make anyone else do it. And Mai's right. I don't want to get you in trouble just because I was too scared to talk to my own dad."

Gaara touched her wrist. When she looked at him she almost flinched at the burning in his eyes. "If he scares you..."

There was a tense, static silent moment. Even Kankuro looked up, expression grave, as he picked up on Gaara's mood. The fact her father was still alive after all these years was really almost surprising, if you thought about it, given his history of messing with the jinchuuriki Gaara used to be.

Then she let out a small laugh, trying to diffuse her lover's quiet anger. "Gaara, no, he doesn't scare me, I just..."

Gah, this conversation had been so lighthearted when it first started out. Of course everything wheeled back to end with her father, it always ended up about her father. The last time she remembered seeing him she'd managed to give him the cold shoulder until he left, and that was only when she was under enough emotional stress that she was having meltdowns every day or so. Fumiko didn't know if she could do it sane.

"This is ridiculous," Gaara said flatly. "You're so happy about this. He shouldn't be ruining it for you."

She dropped the peach pit into her puke-caution-bowl. "We can go see him this afternoon, okay? He should be home after lunch. Usually he is on Sundays. Right, Mai?"

Mai nodded, watching her, still messing with the chopstick. "Yeah, same schedule."

"Okay." she said, nodding like a bobblehead and taking another bite of peach. "After lunch, then."

"Fumiko..."

"It'll be fine, Gaara. I'm sure it will be."

He looked at her, silently. Fumiko knew he could see right through that lie, but he let it drop at the pleading in her eyes. If he pushed it, she would cry. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did, and somehow he saw that and let the topic go.

Silence.

"Aw," Temari said. "You're so protective! It's been so long since I've seen you get all angry over-"

"Temari!"

...

~ "Daddy." Mai frowned. "I mean... I was scared of Gaara too, but... I'm not anymore. So why does daddy still hate Gaara?" ~

...

"Easy," Gaara murmured. "Don't bite."

Fumiko released her bottom lip a few seconds too late. Iron trickled over her tongue. She wiped her mouth with the palm of her hand. "Sorry."

Gaara shook his head but said nothing else. They walked for a few minutes in silence, greeted on all sides by various strangers and a couple of acquaintances. Fumiko jumped each time- ohmyKanmihow'dyouknow?!- but each time caught herself, smiling and waving back.

Her house seemed so far away, like they would never stop walking. It was insane. Fumiko didn't think she'd ever been this anxious to talk with her dad. But maybe that was because all the other times had been accidents or she wasn't expecting a fight and this time they were going to purposely do and say things that would antagonize him.

Mai and Kankuro would already be there, both because Mai had wanted to hit at her punching bags and to warn their mother of the incoming fight. Not that it would be much of a fight, if it came to that, Gaara's sand made him invulnerable to her dad, who wasn't nearly fast or strong enough to break it even in it's weakened state.

Fumiko looked at the dunes so she wouldn't trip, scuffing the sand with her prosthetic. It was really hot today, unlike yesterday's normal-hot, it was scorching, the kind of Suna sun that burned you within the half hour. In this weather you could cook food on the sandstone buildings roofs. ... Well, you could do that on most days, but it sometimes came out undercooked...

"What are you thinking?"

"Cooking food on the roof-tops," she answered automatically, then grinned. "I mean it's really hot."

Gaara squinted up at the sun without bothering to shade his eyes. "Yes, it is, isn't it?"

"I didn't look at a thermometer before we left, but I think it's hotter than usual. Or maybe I'm just still not used to not wearing my cloak." She paused. "Do I look weird without my cloak, Gaara? And my satchel?"

"Not particularly," he replied easily. "Why?"

"Dunno." Fumiko frowned slightly. "Just thought about it." She blinked, startled, as Gaara stopped, and held her arm to make her stop. "Oh, we're here. I almost passed it." Never had her old home door looked so unwelcoming. "Do you think Mai told him already?"

"Judging from the lack of screaming, no."

Fumiko winced. "Yeah... let's go in, then-"

"Wait." Gaara caught her elbow when she tried to reach for the doorknob. She looked at him, question written all over her face, automatic smile on her lips. Gaara's brows were furrowed. "You know I'll keep you safe. It won't be... like last time. I was careless."

Fumiko smiled, a real smile that really reached her eyes. She stood on her tiptoes, holding his chest with one hand for support since he was still holding her other one and kissed the corner of his mouth, then his full mouth. "I know, Gaara."

His lips pursed, eyes narrowing in distress. "He's not worth all this, you know," he said quietly.

"Everyone's worth something, Gaara," she said, and touched the back of his hand. He looked at her for another moment before nodding and releasing her arm. Fumiko turned back around, stepped onto the step, and pushed open the door. Immediately she could hear voices. Gaara touched her shoulder lightly.

"I'm here!" she called loudly. The voices stopped.

"Fumiko?" That was her father, who sounded perfectly pleasant if not a little grumpy. "Come on in! I haven't seen you since that whole deal with those cloak-nins. How are you?"

"I'm fine," she said, shoulders tense, stepping into the hall. Gaara followed right behind her like a shadow, closing the door behind them. The sandy air cut off abruptly from outside, leaving just the hot humid heat in her old home. "Actually, I... I've got something to tell you!"

"We're in the living room!" Mai called. "Mom and Kankuro went shopping for stuff. I don't really remember what."

She cleared the opening into the living room. There they both were, on the couch, scanning over some kind of newspaper. Or, he was scanning over the newspaper, Mai was sitting on the other end, absentmindedly cleaning one of her Tanto blades with a rag. It looked absentminded, anyway, everything Mai did looked lazy or absentminded.

Her father looked at her without smiling, but his expression was clear for a precious few seconds until he asked, "You alone?"

Fumiko moved the rest of the way into the room.

Gaara followed suite.

There was the now familiar scowl. "Kazekage-sama," he muttered in greeting, looking back down at his paper.

Well, that was new. Her father had never called Gaara by his official title before. Maybe something had changed, watching Gaara risk his life for the village like he had... She hoped so. "Hey," she said in an upbeat voice. Although thinking about it really did make her excited and jovial despite the horrible morning sickness. "I have good news!"

"What?" he said sourly.

This didn't seem like a good idea anymore. Fumiko looked up at Gaara with wide eyes. He narrowed his eyes even more. "Fukuda," he said. "I'm going to ask you not to lose your temper."

"Lose my temper?" her father scoffed, looking up again. "Fumiko, I thought you said it was good news. Are you moving back in?"

Mai's eyes flickered to her, and she knew her sister had heard it as well. So much for the changing idea... There was a moment of extremely tense silence. A thousand things went through her head, logic taking over, all possible outcomes and stalls and she realized that no matter what at the end of the day she would end up in Gaara's arms.

So it didn't really matter anyway.

She took a deep breath and braced herself.

"Dad I know you don't like Gaara and I know you don't like that I live with him and that I love him but you're my dad so I thought you'd want to know and I really really hope you can understand and not be mad because I'm really really happy about this and I-"

"Spit it out."

"- I'm pregnant," she gasped.

Silence.

"Easy fix," her father said in a very, very quiet angry raspy whispery voice, going back to his paper very slowly. His hands betrayed him and clenched fingernail holes into the newspaper. The headlines were about a murder of some kind. Gaara had probably dealt with it already.

"Fix?" Mai repeated coldly before Fumiko could. "What kind of fix?"

Don't blow up, don't blow up, don't blow up, she prayed in her mind, but it wasn't for her father, it was for Gaara and for Mai. No matter what he said, if they blew up, he would blow up. Gaara probably wouldn't do anything until her father moved, but Mai was a wild card. Her sister was almost as excited about the twins than she was.

"Abortion," he said through clenched teeth. "What other kind of fix is there?"

"Fukuda," Gaara warned.

"It's yours, isn't it?" He crumpled up the flimsy paper sheets and let the ball drop to the ground at his feet, but he didn't get up, and neither did Mai, although by her distasteful look one could guess she was considering having to re-clean the sword. "I don't know what to wish for more, that it isn't yours or that my daughter isn't a cheating whore."

His voice was rising. Fumiko clenched her eyes shut at the words.

"Take caution in your words," Gaara said in a quietly sane hiss. He was the master of quiet, normal-sounding angry voices. In comparison her father's sounded like empty screaming. "We are telling you out of courtesy."

"I can say whatever I want," he spat, and now he stood. "She's my daughter."

He didn't get it. He didn't understand. Of course he didn't, Fumiko had known he wouldn't, but still, it was a shocking blow, that he was suggesting killing the babies inside her. He was going to be a grandparent. Weren't fathers supposed to be excited about that? Fumiko shook her head and turned. "Let's go now, Gaara."

"Alright," he said warily. "Whatever you want."

"Are you ignoring me?" Fumiko flinched at the sudden volume of his voice. "Don't you dare turn your back on your father! Fumiko, why can't you ever just listen to me, once?"

"Because you're wrong all the time!" Mai cried indignantly somewhere behind her. Fumiko doubted she was still sitting calmly on the couch anymore.

"Is this why your mother left?" he snarled. "Did you plan this? And I'm sure Mai was in on it, too. All of you ganging up on me, like I'm some kind of monster, when there's a real one right there! And what, are your kids going to be the same way? I swear-"

Banging footsteps and Gaara tensed. Fumiko suddenly found herself on the inside of the hallway, flipped with Gaara, who was in front of her. There was a familiar sound of poofing sand, his Ultimate Defense protecting him.

"I knew it!" he exclaimed. Gaara turned. "Word around the village is that you got your demon taken out of you, that you were just like one of us, that you were some kind of a hero now! But you're still hiding behind your goddamn sand like a goddamn-"

No puff, but his words halted in his throat. Fumiko peered around Gaara's shoulder.

Gaara had caught his hand mid-swing. His face was a mask of anger, but you could only see it in his narrow eyes and tight lips. Fumiko would have thought that by now her father would be able to recognize Gaara's anger signs, but he still cursed and tried to pull away. Gaara's grip tightened. Her father faltered. "I don't need my sand, Fukuda. Not for you."

In the silence he looked Gaara in the eye. For one terrible second Fumiko knew her father would never be able to take what he was about to say back.

"If you won't make her get rid of the bastard, then I will!"

Bastard?

Something liquid and angry burned in her throat. In Gaara's, too, it looked like, as he abandoned completely the use of his sand and raised his fist like he was going to knock her dad's head off his shoulders, but before he could Fumiko grabbed his sleeve.

Something popped in her father's hand. He howled.

Fumiko ducked under Gaara's arm, much to his protest, but her father didn't move, favoring the hand in Gaara's death-grip. She wasn't afraid of her dad anymore. She was mad. It was weird and rushing into her face. Not mad like she was mad at Deidara, more mad like she had been when she snapped at Yoshiki.

Because apparently, she had a limit.

She reached back her hand and pushed at Gaara's stomach gently. "Gaara, let him go."

He scowled. If anything his fingers tightened. If he wanted to, he could break every finger and bone in her father's hand. But at most he'd only dislocated something. "Why should I?"

"I'm kinda with Gaara on that," Mai seconded.

"Please."

Another pop. Her father cringed. "If you hit her, Fukuda, I swear I'll kill you."

Usually when he said this it was heat-of-the-moment, and so he wouldn't actually kill him, just throw him into walls and break his hands. But right now in this second, Fumiko knew he was telling the truth. Gaara had a limit, too. But he listened and dropped her father's hand, which he instantly withdrew into his chest.

"Bastard," he hissed.

"Stop calling Gaara names." Fumiko almost regretted her words. Despite the bite behind them, she sounded like a six year old. She wasn't very good with being intimidating. "He's just trying to protect me."

"Protect you? I've been trying to protect you your entire life! How many times has that brat almost gotten you killed?"

Gaara didn't flinch, but Fumiko knew that was a button. It was true that she'd gotten into a few pretty tight life-or-death situations because of him, some of them being the Chuunin exams, fighting against Kimimaro and Seimei, almost getting kidnapped, fighting with two S-ranked Akatsuki members, not to mention all the times she'd nearly been assassinated growing up.

"Protect me from him? From Gaara?" She took a step forward and surprisingly, he took a step back. Fumiko raised her finger accusingly. "Gaara's only protecting me from you!"

"Liar!"

He moved, and it was like the fish all over again.

...

~ Her mother sighed, then knelt down so she was at Mai's eye level. "It's complicated, honey." ~

...

Shut up shut up shut up!

You're wrong!

I love him!

I love them!

I love you!

He could see his own face through blurry vision, first angry then blank and then in pain, and he could feel anger that wasn't his but he was angry, he couldn't remember why where was he what the hell was going on? Voices everywhere screaming at him and his head was spinning and it hurt it hurt it hurt. There were fragmented replays of memories of him from another pair of eyes, hundreds, thousands, angry angry angry.

Stop hurting me.

You're not allowed.

Done I'm done we're done!

...

~ "Com-plica-ted?" Mai frowned even deeper. "What's that?" ~

...

Her father stumbled back another two steps as soon as Fumiko realized her chakra was inside him and withdrew, taking her memories and her thoughts with her. Her face swirled with heat, and her eyes were wide. What had that been? Genjutsu? Had to be. She'd just been thinking too hard and didn't mean to.

Had it hurt him? How did memories hurt?

Uh-oh.

Whatever she'd done, he didn't look very happy about it.

"Oh, is that it?" He was practically shrieking. "Done with your old dad, huh? That was you? You're just like him!"

He lunged.

Fumiko grabbed at his wrist and slung his arm over her shoulder, turning and crouching forward, and pulled hard, pushing back her hip. Her father slid off his feet, sliding over her back. She almost fell under his weight and cried out, pulling all her strength into her arms and leaning forward.

Bam!

Gaara had slipped out of the way in surprise as her father's back hit the ground.

"Yeah, dad," she said, straightening, voice haggard and a little strained from shock and something like wanting to cry. "Maybe I am."

He choked, the breath knocked right out of his lungs. She couldn't tell if he was trying to say anything. Fumiko's shoulder hurt, she'd probably pulled something, and looking down she realized she'd scratched the floor with her prosthetic, leaving behind a long shallow groove where she'd spread her legs for balance under the burden a couple inches long.

The air was silent save for the desperate hacks of air.

"That. Was. Awesome!" Mai crowed suddenly, hands fisting in glee. "I'm in love with your stupid hormones!"

"Gaara..."

"What?" His voice thrummed with a weak surprise.

"I think I need to throw up."

...

~ "It means it's hard to explain." ~

...

Gaara was almost preening with something like pride. He told everyone he got the chance to tell that would care, Kankuro, Temari, Matsuri, even Baki, anyone that would realize the gravity of what she'd done.

It was bizarre. Fumiko still hadn't really processed it.

They'd left him there, on he floor, and left for the market to find where her mother and Kankuro were. Oddly enough they found them in an antiques store looking at old knives and daggers.

"You can use these?" her mother had said, sounding curious and surprised.

"I can use anything in my puppets."

Now they were all back in the kitchen with the exception of her mother, who after hearing the news had given a thin smile and left to head back home. Aside from the fingers of his left hand, there wouldn't really be too much to heal. He'd just gotten the breath knocked out of him. Fumiko had been injured worse.

Although Gaara let everyone know that she'd judo flipped her father, Mai recounted the story with exaggerations and flairs that made it sound like she'd a) been planning it and b) had known what she was doing. She was just lucky Lee had covered judo-flips, otherwise her father would be dead and Gaara would have to explain a lot of things to a lot of people.

Matsuri and Baki had been snagged along the way to hear the story, but then they had left. They still didn't know about the twins, just that they had argued with her father and won. Fumiko thought that maybe Matsuri wouldn't have taken it well, and she'd had to excuse herself to throw up before they got the chance to mention it to Baki.

"I have to say, I didn't know you had it in you," Kankuro said. "Damn... wish I'd been there."

"That's what you get for avoiding awkward situations," Mai said nonchalantly, but she was grinning. "I have always, always, always wanted to see you do that. But, uh, I always imagined you hitting him with your staff or something, not throwing him over your shoulder." Her grin widened, if that was possible. "But that worked too."

Fumiko shook her head with a tiny smile. She almost felt bad for being happy about it. "I didn't throw him."

"Yeah, yeah, flipped him, whatever, same difference."

Gaara didn't say anything, and he wasn't really happy, but you could tell he was ridiculously pleased, mostly because the fear was gone from his eyes.

"Now we just have to tell the Council," Temari said. "But, Gaara, you have a meeting with them tomorrow anyway to talk about the state of the village and your plans to contact the villages. You can just bring it up there." She laughed. "They'll be mad at you anyways."

Gaara nodded. "I was thinking that was the best way as well."

"Wait, tomorrow?" Fumiko said. "What time?"

Gaara shook his head. "No. You can stay here."

"But I want to go! You have to talk to all those advisors."

"I don't want you there," he said. The gentle tone of his voice negated the harsh words. "You don't need to be there."

"But you were there for me," Fumiko protested, dates forgotten. "And we always do everything together, right? Everything but to-the-death."

"I would rather not have to listen to them attack you."

"Gaara's right," Kankuro said. "I think you're too independent for them. They don't really like you. I'll be there, too. This is different than your case; the advisors probably won't attack us." He smiled dryly. "Anyway if you were there they'd just nag and nag and piss Gaara off and then he's mad."

"But-"

"I'll have to give a formal announcement to Sunagakure as well," Gaara said. "... I'll need you there for that, for your own safety if nothing else."

"... But..."

"Don't worry," he said, smiling a little bit. "I won't need to judo flip anyone." His eyes slid down the table. "Mai, what about your father? Will he make a scene before tomorrow?"

"Nah." Mai shrugged. "He'll just sulk and be a loser and whine that his hand hurts all night."

"Then we're good," Kankuro said.

"This is going to be stressful," Gaara said, rubbing his temples.

"Gaara, are you sure-"

"You don't need to worry about it," Gaara said firmly. "The doctors said no stress, so no stress. I'll handle this my way. It won't involve you any more than necessary, I promise."

Temari grinned. "Not even going to say anything this time, baby brother."

Gaara ignored her. "And don't eat anything anyone sends you, okay? Not even canned things."

"Why?"

"Your father was right about one thing and one thing only." Gaara muttered. "Suna is a very traditional village. A lot of people won't take very kindly to any children born of wedlock."

"Ohmysugar you're right," Fumiko realized. "I didn't even think about that!"

'Bastard' her father had said. How many people would call her babies bastards? How many people would think of it that way? There wouldn't be a wedding, not now. There couldn't be. Not with the Akatsuki at large. Not when there was a chance of potentially spurring other Kage to attack them. There could be something smaller, maybe, but she was sure that the village wouldn't go for it.

They would want a big celebration, and that, Gaara couldn't give. Not now anyway.

For the first time ever Fumiko seriously thought about the prospect of marriage. I mean, somewhere she'd always sort of known she would spend the rest of her life with him. Marriage seemed more like a celebration of that fact than an actual binding. Afterwards they would do exactly what they were doing now, just... oh, her last name would be different, that too. Fuma Fumiko.

Haha, that sounded kind of funny. Would she sign her artwork differently? FF instead of MF? No... she would still sign it MF. That was her sign. She was Mitsuwa Fumiko.

"You think someone's gonna try to poison her?" Mai demanded.

Gaara brushed a bit of hair out of his eyes. "It's happened before," he said quietly.

"It has?" her sister asked.

"It has?" Temari blurted.

"It has?" Fumiko was probably the most surprised.

"I always eat presents first, don't I?" Gaara smiled a little sadly. "Or say I need to wash them or heat them up."

"Oh." Fumiko thought for a moment. "But then the ones that are poisoned-"

"I have somewhat of an immunity. Not an invulnerability, but enough. If I detect it I throw it out." He inclined his head slightly to the side. "If it's something we have on hand I replace it. Usually everything's clean."

"Gaara, you should let me know when people personally send me poisoned things." She grinned and stopped herself from reaching for a necklace that didn't exist. "But how'd you do that without stuttering?"

Gaara stole one of the dates out of her bowl and looked at it. "The same way I didn't tell you about executions and T&I."

"Huh."

"You're something else, Fumiko," Temari said in a way just shy of being snarky. "Most people would be concerned."

"Dunno. I didn't get poisoned, I guess."

...

~ "But why? It makes onee-san sad. She cries too much, mommy." ~

...

She couldn't really mail out invitations until Gaara got everything sorted out with the Council. She didn't want to send out specific dates only to have the Advisors shut everything down. They probably wouldn't... but just in case it would be really rude to get them all to com here and then get tied up. Gaara had sworn she wouldn't get involved, but if the Council wanted her to show up somewhere she would have to show up somewhere.

But that didn't mean she couldn't finish them. Fumiko left the time and place spaces blank, filling out the tos and froms and drawing completely new designs with rattles and stars. She would send them all to Lee, the quickest and most reliable person to pass them out to everyone.

Of course in any case if nobody said anything she would mail them out tomorrow, a Tuesday, which would give everyone- give or take a day for Asuka to bring them to Konoha- three or four days. Knowing Lee and Uzumaki Naruto, if they came, it would take a little less than three full days. The rest of them... she might have to make the party Sunday.

The baby shower-slash-birthday party.

She was scheduled for another sonogram chakra scan in a few days, but either way it would be too early to tell genders. Would she have two boys? Two girls? A boy and a girl? She wouldn't know that until sometime after week seventeen or eighteen. Right now sometime between weeks eight and ten it wasn't really discernible. She would learn, however, if her twins were monozygotic or dizygotic.

Secretly, she thought that having identical twins that looked more like Gaara would be the cutest set of twins ever. Especially if they grew up to be smilers. The idea made her grin.

...

~ There was something in her mother's eyes that Mai didn't understand. It wasn't the usual softness, it was more like melted-ness. Which was different than soft. It was. Something like what Fumiko's eyes looked like when her daddy yelled at her. ~

...

This meeting was going about as well as Kankuro had expected it to.

Which was not very well.

The Council was already pissed at his younger brother for trying to contact the other Kage for a Summit. Kankuro had to agree with Gaara about that plan, though. He'd spoken to the Kazekage about it. The idea was risky and full of holes but it was the best shot they had.

And here they'd planned to yell at him and then try to change his mind, fail, yell at him again, and then dismiss the meeting thinking they had properly approached the situation and that if everything went to hell they could just blame Gaara for it. Because Gaara never really listened to the Council and they didn't really like him for that.

Well, if they thought they were angry before, this was a whole different ball game.

"Kazekage-sama!"

"This is unacceptable!"

"Nobody will take this lightly, Lord Gaara!"

"This isn't the reputation required of a Kazekage!"

"We need to fix this immediately!"

"This is disgraceful!"

"Where is Fumiko-san now?"

"Fumiko won't be involved with any of this," Gaara said in a level tone, the first thing he'd said since his announcement. "Any concerns you have can be addressed now."

"She is a concern!" That was Joseki, of course. "Kazekage-sama, I don't think you're aware of the consequences of-"

"I'm perfectly aware." Gaara's voice was monotone. "I do not wish to see her interrogated for no reason that can change things. What has happened has happened. There is no changing it."

"We can't let this get out."

"The other villages will think us fools!"

"There is always the option of terminating the child."

Kankuro could see Gaara's eyes harden from his seat halfway down the table from the former jinchuuriki. "Children," he said. "Fumiko is carrying twins. And you are mistaken. That is not an option."

"Kazekage-sama, forgive me, but you are letting your personal feelings cloud your judgement," another advisor protested. "You must see other options."

"Fumiko will be left in peace, as well as my unborn children," Gaara said with an unwavering iron in his voice. His 'back-off' voice. "I personally will address Sunagakure myself about the matter in the coming week."

"If that is the case, Lord Gaara," somebody said sternly, "then we will need to arrange a ceremony to avoid controversy."

"Yes, a wedding ceremony."

Gaara cut the idea off before the table had even finished discussing it. "That cannot be done either. I'm sorry."

"What do you mean?"

"Good heavens, Kazekage-Sama!"

"You plan to have children out of wedlock?!"

"Do you plan never to marry the girl, even as she bears your heirs?"

"Yes," Gaara said quietly. In his voice Kankuro could pick out emotions, unlike his usual dead flat expressionless meeting tones. "I do." The Council was momentarily quieted. Gaara's voice tightened again. "However that cannot be done at this time. The Akatsuki are still a growing issue, and while we await the reactions of the other villages I will not put Suna in a state of vulnerability."

Whoa. Kankuro hadn't expected that one out of his little brother.

"You have no idea what you're doing." another man despaired. "You are cutting off all other available solutions!"

"No," Gaara said. "I am protecting my family."

One man had the guts to sneer. "Your now bastard family over your village?"

Gaara pinned him with a long stare that silenced his protests. "The village is my family just as much as Fumiko is. I will protect it."

"Gaara's right," Kankuro cut in. "It's not right to make Fumiko give up the kids, and it isn't the right time for any kind of wedding. At this point the other villages will be more concerned with our requests for a Summit than Gaara's personal life, and if we have a big show about it it could well be used against us. And the Summit is our best chance of both locating and fighting against the Akatsuki."

Ooh. Bunch of nasty looks there. But for a minute nobody said anything, caught up in trying to come up with a defense against an unsavory logical front. He nodded to his brother, who nodded back slightly.

This meeting had dragged out for almost two hours now. A good half to two-thirds of it had been wasted on Gaara's Summit idea, and it looked like it might drag on a while yet with this. Kankuro sincerely hoped they didn't override Gaara's requests and send for Fumiko.

They would just poke and prod and yell at her, too, indirectly insult her and the children and Gaara, which would upset at the very least Gaara, and then he would get angry and defensive and it would be easier for the Heads to discredit him.

If that's what they were trying to do, then he had to give them some credit. If there was one way to fluster Gaara's valid points, it was to make him personally want to prove you wrong rather than his theories right.

And the best way to do that by far was threaten Fumiko. It didn't matter if it was a physical threat or not. Gaara would center on taking you out.

A huge weakness for a Kazekage from a logical standpoint. But even without being as close to her as he was, Kankuro had felt the urge to defend her, both in battle and on the streets. There was just something about her- her personality, perhaps, or her fragile looks, that made you want to protect her.

There was an expression in the Shinobi world. It was 'never fight a man who has nothing left to lose.' Maybe that would suit him well if Fumiko ever died, but Kankuro was thinking more that Gaara was the opposite. Fumiko was a part of the village, therefore, even aside from his path of love towards them, the welfare of Suna was precious.

So maybe in Gaara's case it should be written as 'never fight a man who has something to protect.' Kankuro had already seen it in action on the battlefield. Gaara pulled strength out of his ass even when he was half dead if he was trying to defend someone. Yeah, maybe it had gotten him killed fighting Deidara.

But he hadn't had any strength left to move that sand out of the sky. Gaara had done it anyway, despite the literally scientific impossibility.

"This could cause a war," Joseki said at last. "And if it causes a war, we could be in a state of political turmoil. Some may no longer want to follow you. We would fall."

"If they no longer want to follow me, then that is their own undoing," Gaara said calmly. "And in their place I will fight for them. If war does break out, which I sincerely hope it doesn't, as it would be my fault, I would be this village's first line of defense."

Another short pause. There wasn't a person in this room who didn't believe that Gaara could be a first line of defense all on his own.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Kazekage-sama," someone said at last. The quiet murmuring stopped. "Some of what you say is true. But if this goes badly, we refuse to take the blame for your rash actions."

Gaara nodded. "I understand."

"Then I suppose this meeting is adjourned." he said.

...

~ "I know." ~

...

All in all, Fumiko ended up inviting twenty one people to both her birthday party and her baby shower. Eleven from Konoha (of course with extensions to all her friends' sensei) two from Suna's hospital, Ame and another woman she'd become good friends with, and five others from Suna: Mai, her mother, her grandmother, Temari, and Kankuro.

Her dad wasn't invited. He wouldn't have come anyway, but Fumiko didn't want to give him the excuse to try and mess up her special day. Sixteen and a mother.

She mailed the eleven to Konoha in envelopes holding both the invitations and personal letters to each person, all tucked into a smallish burlap sack that she handed over to Asuka for delivery, addressed to Lee.

She could count on Lee to get those messages out of one of the recipients was in Land-of-Waves. Fumiko wasn't at all worried about them getting to their desired people.

Asuka cawed and ruffled her feathers.

"Good girl, Asuka," Fumiko said, petting her bird's head. "Go to Konoha and give this to Lee, please. Wait for him to give you back the bag with replies inside to come back."

Asuka screeched again, startling the handler, before hopping to the open window and taking flight. Fumiko averted her eyes from the sky and closed the entry window again, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear.

"Lady Fumiko, what are you doing now that calls for such a big send?" the handler said in a friendly way, smiling. "Is it your sixteenth already?"

"Yeah," she said, and thought, well, Gaara's giving a statement soon anyways."That, and I'm having a baby shower."

"Baby shower?" he asked. "For who?"

"For me," she said cheerfully. "I'm having twins."

Teuchi choked. "You are?" he exclaimed. "But you're so young!"

"I think I'm ready for it," she said, smiling.

"O-oh." Something else seemed to occur to him then, a bigger kind of shock flitting over his face. His hands fluttered in the air. "And- and the Kazekage?" he asked weakly.

"Gaara?" Fumiko smiled bigger. "Yeah, I think he's ready for it, too."

He looked entirely speechless, and Fumiko realized suddenly that she'd said something without tact again. Even if the whole of Suna knew who they were, Gaara didn't really seem the non-traditional type. Of course he hadn't expected Gaara to be...

"I see..."

"Can you do me a big favor and not tell anyone?" Fumiko grinned. "It's sort of a secret until Gaara announces it officially."

"Um! Uh, sure?"

"Thanks." Fumiko adjusted the strap of her medical pack. She didn't feel queasy at all, which was great. Almost every morning was the same old story, but it kind of stank when she was nauseous all day. "And can you let me know when Asuka gets back?"

"Yeah, I'll, uh, send a messenger."

Fumiko thanked him and left, glancing at the metal stairs and catwalk. She couldn't see the door from here. She reached for her satchel to unzip it and reach for sugar, then paused at the empty air.

To the kitchen, she thought. She needed to make lunch anyway. Without the Gallery, her free days consisted of painting in the bedroom, making food, hanging out with Gaara, and wandering the Tower to talk to various people she came across.

Maybe she could go find Temari or Kankuro and see if they were hungry.

...

~ "You know?" Mai pulled back. "Then why don't you make daddy stop being so mean?" ~

...

They were, of course.

Fumiko threw together burgers with beef and onions and lettuce and pickles and tomato, cutting up various cheeses and sliding them onto a plate to take out as well as condiments like ketchup and relish and mustard and, in Kankuro's case, spicy mayonnaise.

She balanced the tray carefully across the kitchen before setting it down. It smelled great, and immedietly Kankuro grabbed for one, snatching the mayonnaise and the mustard and relish. Temari was a lot more reserved and just picked one up and placed it on her plate before peeling away a few slices of sharp cheddar.

Fumiko really couldn't help it. When she sat down with hers, she spread jelly from that morning's left out jar of peach jam on her bun before putting on ketchup and relish.

"Thas disgustin," Kankuro observed, mouth full of burger.

Temari sighed."Chew your food, please. Even Shikamaru has more class than you."

Mai wasn't here. She didn't usually show up around lunchtime; only in the morning for breakfast and sometimes random times throughout the day, depending on how bored she was and whether or not she needed a sparring partner.

Fumiko took a bite of sandwich. It was funny that she loved the peaches so much, she could put it on so many things she probably wouldn't have actually liked otherwise. Or maybe not, she supposed. All those years putting sugar on things not meant to have sugar on them might have made this easier...

She was surprised to find that it mildly worried her that they were super low on peaches, like down to two or three. Luckily there was an almost unlimited supply of dates; date trees grew all around the water towers and in the greenhouses.

But the peaches...

"So, Kankuro," she said to get her mind off the distressing peach shortage. "How'd the meeting go yesterday? I forgot to ask Gaara about it last night. He was really tired and I kinda just left it."

Kankuro paused with a full mouth of food. A cut strip of onion hung from his almost-open lips. "Uh," he said, then swallowed. The onion vanished. "Fine, I guess."

Fumiko blinked, surprised. "They weren't mad?"

"Of course they were mad." Kankuro laughed. "They're always mad. But Gaara eventually shut them down and shut them up. They'll probably leave you alone." He shrugged. "But it's not like they haven't disregarded Gaara's orders before, so be prepared just in case."

"I'll just tell them the same thing Gaara did, probably." Fumiko took another bite, chewed, and swallowed before going again for the jar. "So if everything's good, I'll have my shower on Sunday."

"That's pretty short notice for the people at the Leaf," Temari said, frowning slightly. "To buy presents and travel down here and set up people to watch their things."

"I don't need presents."

"You're getting presents," she responded immediately. "You'll get stuff in the mail like crazy as soon as Gaara makes the announcement. A lot of people won't like it, but a lot of people will."

Fumiko's eyes widened as she swallowed a spoonful of jelly. "What if I get poisoned baby food or something?"

"Um, check everything for poison?" Temari shrugged. "I guess. Ask Kankuro or something. Taste it a little bit so quantity won't kill you and see if you recognize a venom."

"Oh." She thought about that for a second, picking up the top bun of her burger and glopping on more jelly. "Good idea."

Kankuro was already reaching for a second burger. Fumiko hadn't even eaten half of hers, although Temari had. She passed the relish across the table to him in a slide, which he took up with a nod.

"Everyone's going to be asking after them," Temari mused. "The twins, I mean. They'll want to know their genders and their names, and if they're identical or not, and there'll be a thousand tests to confirm that it's Gaara's. Your life is gonna get pretty hectic."

Fumiko touched her hand to her stomach. The weight gain made sense now, but she was still pretty thin, and if you looked you still wouldn't be able to tell she was pregnant. There was no baby bump.

She couldn't remember if that was bad or not two months in- she'd always dealt more in injuries then things like this. She'd never delivered a baby or even seen one delivered, and she never saw anyone pregnant on rotation when she'd worked in the hospital, never done scans or checkups.

She was having kids.

Wow, sugar.

"I guess. I never really leave the towers anyway, though, so it won't make much difference unless I get a bunch of mail or something."

"Which you will."

Fumiko laughed, then stood. "I have nothing better to do anyway! Ne, I need to take one of these up to Gaara." Gaara didn't like any sauces on his, so she didn't need to worry about stealing the Siblings' stuff. "Need anything before I go?"

"Actually, while you're up, could you grab a strawberry so- Ow!"

"No, Fumiko, we don't need anything. Go on ahead. Sure you don't need some help?"

"I'm not useless yet," Fumiko said with a grin, clearing off the tray save for one burger, three slices of cheddar cheese, and a few extra tomato slices because Gaara loved those. She grabbed her own unfinished plate of food and the jar of peach jelly and put that on as well before going for the fridge.

"I bet Gaara freaks out when you start showing," Temari said slyly. "It doesn't really seem like he's processed it yet. I think he's still in shock."

"He helps me," Fumiko protested lightly, searching around for the strawberry soda in it's gallon jug. She pulled it out, dropped it on the counter, and opened the cupboards to find a capped thermos and a glass.

"No, I mean like not letting you out of his sight. You'll get locked in his office all day."

Fumiko shrugged, unscrewing the lid of a bland colored yellowish thermos that was waterproof and fireproof and basically shinobi-proof. "Like I said, I don't have much to do anyway."

Carefully she poured the clear red bubbly liquid into the thermos until it was two thirds full, then filled the extra glass. Fumiko put the soda back and shut the fridge. Behind her, she could hear the pop as someone flicked open the ketchup.

"Kami, Gaara got lucky. No other girl would be able to deal with his crazy and Kazekage-ness." Kankuro sighed, a loud groaning noise. "Those random fangirls have no idea what they're asking for."

"Kazekage-ness?" Fumiko repeated, confused. She carried the glass and the thermos back to the table, putting one on the tray and one in front of Kankuro. "What's that mean?"

"Thanks. And you guys never really hang out anymore. Well, you do, but it's only on a blue moon day off, nighttime, and working in his office." Kankuro arched one eyebrow, something Fumiko couldn't do. "Every other female I've ever met would hate it."

Fumiko smiled and hefted the tray. "You're welcome. Gaara's happy, so I'm happy. And that makes him happy, which I love. So we're good."

"You're nuts," Kankuro called after her as she backed up into the door to open it.

"So I've been told," she called back just before it closed behind her. Then it was quiet, just her and nobody else in the hallway. She puffed air at her bangs and made a mental note to trim them later. It was getting in her eyes more and more.

Gripping the tray's handles, she made her way down the hall until she reached the stairs, which she studied quietly for a moment before tackling. Fumiko hummed as she made her way to the top.

Halfway up she met Baki, who was on his way down to talk to the other two Sand Siblings. (She really needed to get out of the habit of calling them that in her head; they weren't an official team anymore and thus lacked the name.)

"Hi," she greeted.

Baki gave her tray a quizzical glance.

"For Gaara," she explained.

"I see." He smiled slightly. "Have you seen Temari or Kankuro around? I need to speak with them."

"Yeah, just left them in the kitchen. I'd point, but..." She laughed, rattling the contents of the food tray slightly. "Hey, I didn't really get to talk to you the last time I saw you. Sorry about that. It's been a while since we talked."

"Yes, you were ill. Feeling any better?"

"Yeah." The stairwell was a somewhat awkward place for a conversation, but Fumiko was about seventy eight percent confident in her standing-on-the-stairs-without-falling skills. "Anyway I was trying to tell you something before I threw up."

"About your father, yes?" He clapped a hand on her shoulder, which might've made her teeter if he hadn't known about the other twenty two percent chance of her back-down-the-stairs-quick rate and steadied her. "Good job. You've always been stronger then you looked."

"Yeah, thank you, but that wasn't what I was talking about." Fumiko grinned. "Have you talked to Gaara lately?"

Baki shook his head. "No, not aside from two days ago."

"That's why. Don't tell him I told you and act surprised when he does; I think he wants to be the one to tell you. He says he doesn't, but I know he wants to tell everyone he knows. Gaara's like that, you know. Can't let anyone know that he's proud."

"Yes...?"

"Oh, right! Off topic there for a second." The tray was getting heavy, woven cord handles starting to dig into her fingers. She shifted to readjust it against her hip and not send the thermos or a burger flying down the steps. "Well, um-" She wanted to say it with more tact this time- "I'm pregnant. And Gaara's the father in case you were about to ask."

Or not.

Fumiko wasn't really good with tact.

Baki's next comment, whatever it was going to be, seemed to die in his throat, air escaping through his open mouth. Fumiko looked at him expectantly.

"..."

"Okay, well, I gotta get this up to Gaara. He probably doesn't know he's hungry."

"..."

"Oh yeah, and they're twins!"

"..."

"Don't tell him I told you."

"..."

"Bye."

"..."

Fumiko flashed him another quick smile before continuing on her path. So far as she could hear, Baki didn't move. She hoped he wasn't like still that when he went to talk to the Siblings, Temari would tease him.

...

~ "Honey, it's not that easy." ~

...

One staircase and two more awkward conversations later, Fumiko bumped into Gaara's office door. She twirled inside off the door, humming and letting it close behind her back with a quiet little thud.

"I brought burgers," she announced cheerfully.

"Thank Kami," he said immediately, rubbing his temples in distress. His desk was swarmed with papers to the point that he had moved his potted cactus to the floor. With his day off and her father and his meeting he didn't want her to go to she hadn't been in here for four or five days. "I'm losing my mind."

...

~ "It is too!" she protested. "I ran away all the time, and then, and then... onee-chan told me he wasn't scary, and... and she was right! And Gaara's not. He told me so, too. You just have to tell daddy that." ~

...

When Fumiko woke up, her brain was a combination of freaking out and really really really wishing they hadn't run out of peaches the day before.

She hated nightmares. Fumiko didn't understand how Gaara had lived with them for his entire life, and his had been worse than these could ever be.

Deidara blowing up her Gallery had been terrifying enough, but then she'd gone into labor and miscarried and he'd carried her to the hospital on his clay bird that smelled like wet clay and Gaara had shot them both out of the sky without realizing she was on it with the Akatsuki and she'd plummeted to her death with her mouth tasting like clay and sand.

After giving Gaara a rundown of her dream before she forgot it (this being after the freaking-out part of her brain finally slowed down) he scowled and pulled her onto his lap where he sat leaning up against the headboard. Above their heads, the sunset present she'd given Gaara for his Academy graduation mimicked the red-orange glare outside their windows.

Fumiko immediately laid back against his chest, pulling her foot up so that her knee rested on his leg. Gaara might've been blushing if he didn't look so angry-worried. "Your dreams are getting worse." he muttered.

"How?" This was the same as all her other increasingly normal once-or-twice-a-week occurrences. "I haven't been getting more than usual."

"No, but you're dying a hell of a lot more than you used to."

Fumiko blinked, going silent.

"Sorry." He hugged her tighter from behind. "I'm just worried."

"I know." Fumiko scooted back a little more and stretched up so his chin rested on her head. "I know. But it's okay. I mean, you had nightmares all the time before..."

"And they drove me insane," he said quietly. "I don't want you to go through that as well."

"It's okay, Gaara. Really." At his silence, she smiled. "Actually, it's kind of funny, if you think about it. We switched places. Now I'm the one waking you up."

"Deidara won't ever get to you, okay?" Gaara hesitated. "Never."

Fumiko sighed. This was a conversation they'd had over and over again since her first nightmare she'd had that she could remember the nuke-nin being a part of. It didn't make her uneasiness about him go away, and that seemed to kill her best friend.

"I know, Gaara."

Quiet.

Then Gaara started to detangle from her, pushing her gently back onto the covers and sliding off the bed. At her protest, he just smiled at her slightly. "I'll be right back, I promise."

And then he left. Left the room. The door closed and everything.

Fumiko quickly pulled the blanket back over her legs and eventually her head and laid down, peeking out of a tiny air-hole, huddling in the darkness to hide from clay birds and bad dreams. It wasn't really dark, though, the sun was rising slowly outside.

Why in the world had he left like that?

Maybe he was getting peaches.

Sugar. They were out of peaches.

There were dates, but she wanted peaches more.

A few minutes later the door opened, shafting more light into their bedroom. Gaara backed up into the room, pushing the door open with his shoulder like he was carrying something in both hands. Fumiko, curious, pulled the blue cover farther from her eyes.

"I was planning to wait for your party, but now seems like a better time. I'd rather not give it to you in front of all your friends, anyway..."

Party? Oh, her birthday-party-slash-wedding-shower. Was it a present? Fumiko sat up, pushing the blankets down to her lap. Gaara went around them bed to his side and sat down, then kind of awkwardly suddenly held it out.

Fumiko blinked.

A cactus.

A potted cactus. It was almost the size of her bedside lamp in a somewhat sloppily painted blue ceramic looking pot. It was green and had sharp-looking spines.

Fumiko figured it was one if his pet project cactai, the ones he planted and grew and raised in various places around the Tower. There were two in the kitchen smaller than this one, two in his office- one on his desk and a huge one almost bigger than her beside the door- and three in here; the bathroom and the corner of the room and a different corner.

But she'd never seen this one before. That gave her a few moments pause as she tried to pull it out of her memory. Then she noticed the nearly completely open bud at the top of it and smiled wide, clapping her hands together.

"You got one to flower!" she exclaimed.

"Yes." Gaara looked a little proud at the praise. He'd been trying to get flower buds on his cactai for the entirety of the last year or so with no success. He had gone through probably thirty different kinds of soil and fertilizer and a million different recommended ways to grow them.

She continued to grin, and Gaara continued to hold it out.

A few seconds passed like this.

"... Wait, are you giving this to me?" Fumiko yelped.

His face darkened slightly and his eyes averted to a space about half an inch from her eyes. "Yes. For your birthday. I would have given it to you on your birthday, but it hadn't started to flower yet."

"Whoa." Fumiko searched her brain but didn't find any words, so instead she took the pot from his hands and propped it up in her lap with her knees. "Thanks, Gaara. I don't know what to say."

Gaara smiled awkwardly, tilting his head. He didn't say you're welcome, but he almost never did. It was just one of those phrases that he never really remembered to say. They didn't mean anything to him. He communicated his deepest feelings through looks and actions anyway, not words.

If he tried, it either turned out really cheesy and he got embarrassed or he stuttered and got embarrassed.

She leaned up and kissed him in an awkward semi-twisted stretch, bracing her hand on his leg for leverage. She could taste his surprise, then felt his hand on the back of her neck pushing her closer and smiled slightly.

As much as kissing him could allow her to smile.

When Fumiko finally broke away (for air) Gaara sort of followed her face with his for a second before he realized what he was doing and flushed the color of dark apples. His hand dropped like a stone to the blankets and he straightened. Fumiko laughed a little breathlessly before settling back onto the bed, brushing away the bit of dirt that had spilled over the rim of the pot.

At least she hadn't been jabbed by thorns. Fumiko smiled affectionately at the bright pink flower nestled on the beavertail's top.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go make breakfast before you go to work, Kazekage."

Gaara, still flustered, could only nod.

...

~ "I wish it worked like that, honey," her mother said and sighed again, dropping her hands into her lap. "I really wish it did." ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had to fit in Gaara's cactus-growing


	12. Sunrise

...

~ "Ne, Gaara?" ~

...

It'd been a while since she last stood on this stage.

Gaara had given speeches before, of course. As Kazekage it was his job to address the village on matters that concerned them, like possible dangers or the occasional rebuild, reform, new law or a law being discarded. And Gaara gave these speeches more than any other Kazekage had in the past, aside from perhaps the First, because he wanted the village to know about things that didn't directly concern them.

But still.

A long, long while. Months. Actually, Fumiko was kind of surprised that he hadn't given one yet, what with the invasion and his death and everything that had happened in the last few months. Maybe he just didn't want them to panic? She would have to ask him later.

Gaara wore his white Kazekage robes and hat, all straightened and ironed professionally by people who stood by to make sure everything went smoothly for cameras at public events. His hat was still somehow perfectly straight despite the wild wind, although the cloth attached to it that had been carefully draped over his shoulders whipped about. The hem of his robes rippled like blown grass.

Fumiko herself was wearing something more traditional, despite having intended to leave in her usual clothes already. While builders put the finishing touches on the portable stage, she'd been whirlwind changed into a long-puffy-sleeved sandy tan shirt and black pants loose enough to roll over her prosthetic. The shirt was tied down with some kind of cloth like a belt, and on her shoulders rested a common colored shawl of sorts that came halfway to her elbow, a tinted off-white like eggshells similar to what the Council wore.

Underneath it, hidden from view, was some kind of thin vest that they promised would deflect most ninja tools and would even prevent certain low-level jutsu from piercing her. Which was slightly reassuring, not that she thought anyone would go so far as to attack her on stage while she was with Gaara.

It felt really odd. And hot. Her medical pack was back at the Tower, along with her clothes, including her shinobi sandal. As a civilian, they had claimed, she should dress as a civilian, higher-class or not. Not that Fumiko really knew how she was 'higher-class', but she did know that this wooden civilian sandal clacked almost louder than her prosthetic and was making her even more uneven and off-balanced than usual.

Even her hair had been fixed, pulled back into a low ponytail. The band was almost at her shoulders, so her hair was loose enough. Fumiko figured it was more so her hair wouldn't blow into her face than anything else... She'd washed off all the paint. She wasn't recognizable at all anymore- if she jumped into the crowd below she would blend right in.

That was probably the point, though. At this point a lot of people had been informed of why this kind of announcement was actually taking place, mainly the clothes-people and the guard-people, so the chances were they were trying to make her seem just like everyone else, nonthreatening. She didn't really care what she was wearing as long as it wasn't uncomfortable, which this wasn't, so she'd just let them do their thing, straightening the belt and combing out her already perfectly straight flat hair, and adjusting the pant leg around her prosthetic.

She was still going to change as soon as she got home, though.

Gaara spoke like he was reading off flashcards with his monotone voice, but Fumiko knew he didn't write his speeches because they freaked him out if he planned them ahead of time. Bulbs flashed in the crowd. People were yelling questions everywhere, most of them reporters with notepads and pencils, a good lot of them ninja, but some uncertain plain old civilians like herself.

At first, it was all the usual stuff: recent news of other villages, the economical stability of the village, a brief rundown of what had happened and why there was still a red alert on the Akatsuki, and, in a bold, unplanned move, that he was attempting a Summit to connect with the other villages. He answered a few questions, stalling for time, but eventually he ran out of things to say.

Main points covered, they were at the inevitable end. Gaara paused, took a deep breath, and looked at her.

Fumiko smiled and took his hand, lacing his fingers with hers behind the big wooden podium.

"Lord Kazekage, is that all?" a reporter cried.

Gaara tried to speak, and then in an uncharacteristic bout of what looked like stunned stage fright, froze. Fumiko nudged her arm into his, stepping closer. More flashbulbs went off. She could almost feel the disappointed anxious glares of the Council Elders behind her boring into the back of her head, but she ignored them.

"Uh, no," she said, and at first her voice didn't carry through the impatient shouts of the crowd. But then they quieted as they realized that their Kazekage hadn't spoken. Gaara's startled eyes flicked sideways, but Fumiko just smiled again. "No, there's one other thing. Just give us a second."

She was half expecting the noise to get even louder as people told her off for speaking out of turn, but they went quiet instantly.

She looked up at Gaara. Fumiko had come to terms with the fact they they would never be eye to eye. She was fairly sure her growth had completely stopped, and she was left with her eyes barely reaching his shoulders. It made hugging more comfortable, though. "Go ahead," she said quietly enough that no one but a nearby shinobi would be able to hear her. "I'm right here."

The crowd started to titter.

The Kazekage, nervous? Well, maybe not nervous, per se, as his voice and posture betrayed nothing, but he was obviously hesitating, which was still just as unheard of among the people of Suna.

Gaara sighed, and she realized he'd been holding his breath. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again they were focused on the crowd. His grip on her hand tightened minutely.

She could see Mai in the crowd with her Genin teammates and sensei, and her mother, and even her father in the very back. She could barely make out his face, but he was there. And there was Ame with a few of her other good friends from the hospital. Kankuro and Temari stood side-by-side. Fumiko recognized a few people that had wandered her shop often. Near the front she spotted Shunichi, Tadashi, and Naoki. Yoshiki was there as well. And Matsuri and a few of the other kids from Gaara's Genin class.

Fumiko could barely take the suspense. She wanted to scream it. She wanted them to know. To know.

Hurry up, Gaara, she thought, blood pumping in her ears. Tell them before I do.

"I have good news," he started. Fumiko realized there really was no official, politic-approved way to say that he was having a child out of wedlock with someone of a social status that shouldn't even have been on his radar. They probably should have practiced... "Fumiko...-san-" He'd tripped over the san- "And I... We..."

Fumiko was the only one that knew he was wearing his sand armor. Just in case someone got angry and attacked, sure, but also because he was Gaara, and Gaara still valued his persona, and Gaara hated blushing.

She also knew that the villagers' silence was only going to last for another three or four seconds...

Quick breath. Fumiko could feel his heartbeat in his fingers. Bum-bum-bum. "Are expecting."

Right, expecting. It was a good thing he'd said that, because Fumiko had already forgotten the publicist's warning that expecting was a much less provocative use of vocabulary than pregnant. Now she would know when she got volleyballed with questions.

Bum-bum-bum.

The crowd exploded and it was like yin and yang, joy and hatred. Faces ranged anywhere from ecstasy to horror to disgust to blank flat I'm-still-in-shock expressions.

Gaara cut them off with his free hand in the air, calling for silence, which he only half got.

"There will be a w-wedding-" Fumiko smiled, stutter?- "But not in the immediate future, and not before the children are born."

This answered probably fifty or sixty different people's questions but only caused another uproar- And Gaara had said children, plural, which gave that away, which was probably good because now Gaara wouldn't have to cause another uproar.

"Kazekage-sama, is this true?!"

"Lord Gaara, you would have children out of wedlock?!"

"Are they twins or more?!"

"What are the children's genders? How far along is her term?!"

"When is Lady Fumiko expected to-"

"This is outrageous!"

"Are you engaged?!"

"The Lord Kazekage is having children! How amazing!"

Funny how nobody addressed her. Wait, had someone called her Lady? Ooh. She laughed, and it didn't matter, because nobody could hear her anyways over the roar of people, not even herself and probably not even Gaara, although he did look at her and smile when he realized she was howling happily.

Flash-flash-flash.

Someone had gotten that little grin on camera. Fumiko grinned, still giggling, when Gaara's face blanked out. Bum-bum-bum. His heartbeat matched hers now. She was even more excited. At least half of these people were happy for them. For now, anyways, in public, but still! Some were even laughing! She knew that at least Mai was smirk-grinning and that perhaps her father was scowling, but she couldn't pick them out in the sudden fray.

They answered questions for a while, her and Gaara. Yes, they will be born out of wedlock. Yes, they're twins. No, we aren't getting married yet. I'm almost three months in. No, we don't know the babies' genders yet, and yes, we are absolutely completely definitely entirely certain. (That was her after hearing the question for the sixth time.) And no, it wasn't planned.

Eventually the crowd got kind of wild, pushing and shoving and getting angry at each other, and it was about that time that a few shinobi guards decided to bring them back into the balcony building behind the stage and let others sort out the mess.

In the small space between the stage's back stairs and the door, they were essentially flooded with reporters, and Fumiko was pretty sure Gaara impatiently stoically agreed to at least three interviews before they finally managed to shut the door behind them. Two shinobi of the three stayed outside to stop them coming in, and the other locked the door from the inside.

Fumiko giggled again. "That was kinda fun."

Gaara shook his head. "You and I have very different definitions of fun."

"Nuh-uh." She grinned. "You're just too serious."

"I am not." Gaara looked somewhat amused. "We could've been assassinated just now."

Fumiko waved a hand dismissively. Gaara still hadn't let go of her left hand, but she didn't mind. "No way, not with your sand. And anyway, I'm wearing an attack-proof vest!" She thumped her chest to prove her point.

The third shinobi just watched them talk with something like bemusement in his face, fighting with confusion. He said nothing. Luckily Gaara seemed to have forgotten he was there, or he would be all clammed-up-scary-Kazekage again.

"It went better than I expected, in any case."

"Yeah!" Fumiko exclaimed. She tugged on his hand, pulling in the direction of the probable ANBU escort waiting to walk them home. "C'mon, Gaara, let's go make cake!"

...

~ "Yes?" ~

...

"I wonder when I'm gonna start showing," Fumiko wondered aloud, standing sideways in front of the bathroom mirror. It was a little disconcerting that at week eight or nine she couldn't see any noticeable difference in her appearance. Aside from the morning sickness and the weird peach/date cravings, you wouldn't even know she was pregnant with twins.

"What? You are." Gaara replied quizzically, shedding the first and heaviest layer of his robes.

"Eh?" Fumiko had taken her shawl and puffy long sleeved shirt off and was frowning at her reflection. She wasn't... flat, but it didn't really look like she'd gained the five or six pounds like the scales all claimed. "I am?"

"Yeah, you look different."

"How in the world do you know that and not me?" Fumiko cracked something like a smile. "I can't see it!"

Gaara flushed. "I-I mean, I..."

"Where?" She stared hard at her stomach, then back at her reflection.

"Put your shirt on," he muttered.

"Oh, right." She picked up the forgotten sleeveless turtleneck from the counter and slipped it on, then peeled off her weird black pants, careful not to trip over the excess fabric. Fumiko had changed in the bathroom of all places, so all her clothes were in here. Gaara had sort of just absentmindedly followed her. After they changed, Fumiko was planning on heading to the kitchen to make a big fat double chocolate mud cake.

They were quiet for another few seconds while she bounced around trying to pull on her shorts before finally going and sitting on the toilet so she wouldn't lose her balance. Then she exhaled, standing up and brushing off the black shorts she had dropped on the floor when told 'hey, those clothes are not acceptable'.

"Okay," she said and stood back in front of the mirror, where Gaara was shrugging off the last of the whiteness. Underneath was a simple plain black tee that he wore underneath his battle-clothes, and a normal pair of pants that he would probably change out of in a few minutes. He ran a hand through his hair and then put his hat back on before looking over at her.

"What?"

'Where?"

"How can you- not see it?"

"I guess I'm just used to myself. Kinda like how you don't notice yourself growing?'

"I know yourself, and I noticed." His eyes widened. "Gah, I mean, forget I said that! I-it came out wrong."

She laughed. "It's okay." Fumiko draped her medical pack over her shoulders. She'd already taken out the ponytail, and now the band was on her wrist. She doubted the clothes-people would ask for it back, but just in case they did she wanted to have it on her. Anyway, she might end up needing it for something someday.

She reached for the hairbrush, then froze as she felt pressure on her stomach. She blinked over at Gaara, who was steadfastly avoiding her eyes, cheeks dusted red. Fumiko looked at the mirror, eyes drawn to Gaara's hand just above the base of her stomach. She touched his fingers and smiled.

"Here?" she murmured.

"A-an-and, your..." he couldn't seem to say it, voice lowering to a distressed mutter and eyes narrowing to the point of almost being closed. With every stutter his skin darkened. "Your, y-your..."

"Oh!" she blurted as she finally realized what he was trying to say. Fumiko grinned, hands on his hands on her stomach where if she used a diagnostic jutsu, she could see her babies growing. "Gaara, my chest?"

He didn't exactly say 'uh'. It was more like eh-eh-nngh-uuhh-rghh. Basically, he was rambling with no words. Fumiko just laughed and lifted one of her hands to his upper arm. "Easy," she said. "No good getting red in the face before we make cake. Kankuro'll be by."

He smiled at her, twitchy nervous and flushed. "I'll g-go change."

Gaara winced at the catch in his words and quickly shuffled out of the bathroom, hand slipping off her stomach and rubbing the back of his neck. After he was gone, Fumiko surveyed the still-tingling spot on her belly in the mirror, squinting. Maybe... if she looked really hard and turned sideways...

...

~ "When we're older, and all of this Akatsuki stuff is blown over..." Fumiko placed a hand on her slightly raised stomach, rubbing it gently with her thumb. Fumiko claimed not to notice, but Gaara could easily distinguish the slowly growing difference. After a second, her eyes flicked to his, shiny and sparkling, and smiled. ~

...

Technically, Asuka was supposed to bring all letters and packages straight to the aviary, and from there various messenger shinobi would bus around whatever the bird had brought back. But somehow, Asuka was able to tell what was meant for her and what wasn't, and thus usually brought all of her personal mail to her and Gaara's room, since that where she usually was.

Asuka still didn't really like Gaara, despite the fact that he no longer had that terrifying burnt orange-yellow chakra. Probably just animal instincts that the bird thought to stay away from the most dangerous things around it.

Her bird came flying and screeching and flapping into the kitchen- from the hallway, surprisingly enough, someone had to have let her inside from their room, probably a maid that had seen or heard her tapping at the window- dragging along her burlap sack.

Fumiko patted the flour off her hands, wiping it off on her shirt and meeting Asuka halfway at the kitchen table. Her talons were probably scratching the wood a little bit or at least tearing through the tablecloth, but it didn't really matter. Nobody ate in here aside from the Kazekage's family and the few servants and various shinobi Fumiko called in from the hallways.

She smoothed Asuka's back. "Good girl," she said. "Asuka, good girl. Now, give."

Gaara came up hesitantly behind her, carefully keeping all body parts away from Asuka, as she'd grown consistently less tolerant of Gaara touching her, watching over Fumiko's shoulder as she unfolded the sack's lid. Inside were a few letters and scrolls, not nearly as many as she'd sent out. That was normal enough- usually Shikamaru either didn't reply at all or took a few weeks to finally pen one down, not to mention that they were ninja and some were probably on missions.

She upturned the sack and dumped the letters out on the table. Asuka cawed and hopped away as she filtered through them.

The first one she grabbed was from Sakura, and she eagerly ripped it open and pulled the letter out.

"Dear Fumiko and Gaara," she read aloud. "Uh, that's just a scream in block letters." She held it up so Gaara could see, beaming when he chuckled.

Dear Fumiko & Gaara,

AHHHHHHH! Since when have you been PREGNANT?! These are things you need to tell us earlier and not with a casual invitation to your baby shower! Anyway, I'm answering on both my and Ino's behalf. Ino's going through a tough time right now, so are Shikamaru & Choji.

"Ne?" Fumiko bit her lip. "But... they're a team."

Gaara shrugged. "Perhaps a mission went badly," he suggested. "Keep reading."

Don't be surprised if they don't respond. They just lost their-

"Asuma," Fumiko breathed. "Oh my sugar, Shikamaru and Choji and Ino..."

There was more in the letter that killed her mood and raised it at the same time. It was the fault of the Akatsuki, but Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, Uzumaki Naruto and Kakashi had managed to kill and incapacitate two members she'd only read about in bingo books but never met, Hidan and Kankuzu.

"This had to have happened within the last few weeks," Gaara muttered. "I'm surprised the Leaf hasn't notified us yet."

But don't worry about that now! Ino & the others are really happy for you! We're all coming to your shower, but seeing as I'm replying to your invitation two days before the party and you'll probably get this on the day before, we won't be able to make the date!

Reschedule?

\- Sakura

"It was kind of sudden," Gaara said softly.

Fumiko rifled through the letters, pushing aside Uzumaki Naruto's and Lee's and Hinata's, looking for Choji's letter and came across- what?

It was a scroll with the Nara clan's seal on it. No way had Shikamaru replied already, he never replied with the first batch no matter how much Lee pestered him to. Especially if his sensei had just died; Fumiko knew how close her friend had been to his sensei, even though he hadn't shown it. Gaara frowned as she broke the seal with her thumb and pulled it open.

Fumiko-chan,

This is Shikaku. Shikamaru has been trying to reply, but I'm not sure if he can right now. I assure you he's very excited- and I mean that quite literally, he's about as excited as a Nara can be- but I don't think he'll be able to travel for a while. My congratulations to you and the Kazekage.

\- Nara Shikaku

...

~ "... We're getting married, right?" ~

...

After reading and replying to each individual letter and finishing icing the mud cake, Fumiko brought Asuka back to their room to rest. She would fly out again tomorrow to bring back the responses, but for now she deserved a night's rest and some good food.

Gaara seemed to be really unnerved at her silent routines as she changed and brushed her teeth and got ready to go to bed early, but her head was whirling too fast for her to try and act like she was okay.

Stupid Akatsuki. Stupid, stupid, stupid Akatsuki. She wished they would all just disappear, wither away into nothing and never bother anyone again, never show up in her nightmares or ruin anybody else's lives or mess up her baby shower for crying out loud, why couldn't they just stay in whatever cave they were hiding in and leave her alone?

"They don't care, Fumiko. People like that don't."

Had she said that out loud?

"Yes, you did."

"Oh." She actually heard herself speak that time. Fumiko crawled under the covers, leaning her back up against the backboard and taking off her prosthetic, letting it drop to the ground with a muffled but audible thud. She peeled off her sock, dropped it on top of her prosthetic, then pulled the blanket up to her stomach.

Gaara cursed. "Don't," he said in a pleading tone, sitting next to her on the other side of the bed.

"Don't what?" Her voice sounded quiet and kind of disturbingly blank even to herself, like it was echoing. Of course it wasn't, but that's what it sounded like. Maybe that's what was scaring him. Don't talk like that? Probably; her friend always got uneasy whenever she was sad. "Sorry."

"No, no sorry." Gaara touched her face to move her eyes away from the wall. "Don't drift off again."

"Drift off?" she parroted.

"Like before. When you were scared the Akatsuki would-"

"I never stopped being scared that the Akatsuki would come back!" she snapped, then flinched. "I mean, I guess I just kind of... just kind of... forg-g-got." Her throat tried to close and she sniffled, fighting off a sudden and unexpected flood of tears. "I-I mean, was it s-so wrong to th-think that maybe everything would just b-b-low o-over? Kami, I just w-want to- to-"

"Don't cry." Gaara's voice was stricken. "Please don't cry."

She cried anyway. "I'm s-sorry! How many of th-them even a-are there?" Fumiko hiccupped and drew a ragged breath. "Everything was g-great and then- Akatsuki and then e-ev-erything was going g-good ag-g-gain, and nuh-now they're b-b-back again and- and Shikamaru and Choji and Asuma and u-us and oh my K-kami G-gaara w-we're having k-kids and I-"

Gaara pulled her into his chest and held her tightly enough that it was almost painful. Her fingers wrapped around his arm, gripping sleeve. "Calm down," he said, voice steady. How could his voice be steady? "I'll kill them all myself before I let one of them near you, okay?" His nose burrowed into her hair.

She laughed wetly. "And wh-what if they k-kill you?"

"Then Mai will do it for me."

"Th-that doesn't m-make me feel b-b-better."

"It's not supposed to," he said quietly. She could feel his lips ghosting over the top of her head. "I'm simply telling you the truth. I don't care if it's all of them or one of them." Gaara paused. One of his hands slid up her back and neck until he was touching her hair. "Please stop crying. I hate it when you cry. I don't know what to do."

"I d-don't eith-ther," she admitted.

Gaara said nothing else after that, and eventually Fumiko ran out of tears to cry.

...

~ Gaara's breath halted in his throat and he choked on it, coughing. When he could finally breathe again, he stuttered, "I- I- um-" ~

...

Gaara was getting sick and tired of this.

Fumiko had always been the calm one before. The reasonable one. The one of the two of them that could look at the bright side and be optimistic that nothing would hurt them again even when everything was hell around them. It was so easy with her. And Gaara had always assumed that would never change.

Ever since these Akatsuki had showed up from nowhere, his best friend had turned into a somewhat unstable mess that sometimes seemed like herself and sometimes had breakdowns like this right in front of him, and he never had any idea what to do. It was frustrating.

He wondered if Fumiko would stabilize if Deidara was ever pronounced dead. Perhaps. But at this point, she seemed more frightened of the cloak itself. She probably didn't think he knew, but Gaara wasn't so stupid as to not realize she wouldn't look at the sky or the sunsets anymore if there were clouds about.

He just wanted her to be happy again. All-the-way happy, not happy seventy to eighty percent of the time, like how she'd used to be.

She was sleeping now, still curled into his side sitting up against the headboard, and every nerve in his body was on high alert for signs of distress. If there was ever a likely time for her to have a nightmare, now was one of them.

He wasn't lying either. If one of those cloak-nins showed their faces Gaara was certain he was angry enough to send them to the afterworld he'd briefly lived in. If all of those criminals showed up at once, well, he would damn sure find a way to keep them away from her if it killed him. He sighed, brushing his fingers through her soft straight hair.

In the morning she would be fine, if not a little sore from sleeping like a homeless person. Gaara was willing to bet her mind would sort through everything, and she would come up with an idea to make Shikamaru and Choji and Ino suddenly feel better, and she would realize that she barely knew Asuma anyway, and that both sighted Akatsuki were dead.

It was strange, how Fumiko's brain worked.

...

~ "It doesn't have to be anytime soon," Fumiko said thoughtfully. "I mean, you're sixteen. I'm almost sixteen. We have all the time in the world, and besides, it's already kinda like we're married." ~

...

"They're identical?" Fumiko could barely keep the joy out of her voice.

The nurse gave a slight smile. "Yes, they are. And you should be very proud, my Lady. They're as healthy as can be, if not a little small. You should start noticeably showing in the next few weeks. My advice is to go clothes shopping."

"Great!" she crowed, then paused. "Did you just call me Lady?"

"Yes?"

"Why is everyone calling me 'Lady' all of a sudden?"

The nurse looked at her a little uncertainly. The last of the green faded from her fingers. Sometime soon Fumiko was going to try and learn the infintisemal details of pregnancy so she could keep track of her babies' health herself, not just 'oh, they're bigger than the last time I checked.' "Well, you are the Kazekage's beloved."

"Uh... haven't I been for the least year or two?"

"Yes, but it's different now." she said confidently. "Not only are you expecting his child, but the Kazekage has formally announced that he plans to marry you in the future. People will call you 'Lady' just a we call Lord Kazekage 'Lord.' It's only respectful."

"I don't really- want to be a Lady..."

...

~ A beat of silence. ~

...

In the week following Gaara's formal speech, it seemed like the mail runners were running off to find her every ten minutes. It didn't matter if she was bathing, cooking, eating, drawing or painting, making seals, sleeping, wandering the halls, in the library archives, practicing iryou-nin jutsu or working in the office with Gaara.

"Lady Fumiko, you have mail."

"Fumiko-sama, a letter arrived for you."

"Fumiko-san, you have a package."

"Fumiko-sama, you've gotten another request for an interview."

"My Lady, here's another letter for you."

"You have another letter."

"Another package."

"Another gift."

"Another mail bag."

It was a good thing she didn't really have anything better to do than find something to do. She could sit down at the kitchen table, or on the stool in Gaara's office, or at his makeshift office desk in their bedroom, and sift through the letters and go through the packages. She tried to respond to all of them, but sometimes it seemed like she'd barely managed to read a stack of mail before she got another one.

Temari had been right in that she was getting a lot of gifts. She almost felt bad for the poor birds. There was baby food, and there was boy and girl clothing alike, and bottles and binkys and stuffed animals and rattles and toys like rubber kunai that could be chilled for teething. Bags and formula and enough diapers that she would never ever have to buy any ever, two babies or not.

She didn't even begin to know where to keep it all, so she'd taken to putting most of it in separate bins in the was-empty spare room on the other side of the kitchen from them. Maybe it could be a nursery room or something!

There were things for herself as well, flowers and ceran-wrapped dishes of meals and candy and new clothes that stretched a lot. It was crazy. But more than the gifts there were the letters.

She got fan-mail and hate-mail and letters from 'secret lovers' and big long gushing novels that were five million pages long and detailed notes on raising kids and a million questions about the sex and health and names and everything of her babies, and a few spitting-angry theories that it wasn't actually Gaara's child, and she got death threats from Gaara-fans and congratulations from civilians.

Some were addressed to her and some were addressed to Gaara and some were addressed to her & Gaara. A few were even labeled as 'Fuma Fumiko' like she was married already. Some she just stuck down the kitchen dispenser. Others made her laugh or grin ear to ear. Those were the ones she replied to.

She would admit that the love letters were a little weird, though. Random people she had never even heard of in passing let alone met talking about how they'd either lost their chance or would still run away with her. Some were pretty detailed. One was in cutout newspaper letters.

Speaking of newspapers...

She was supposed to have a few interview things with Gaara for some of the more well-known (and as Gaara says, well trusted) papers and news places, but not being able to ask questions didn't seem to really be stopping them from writing articles, no matter how inaccurate they were. A lot of them were actually super offensive, and almost none of them were putting anything in a good light.

But that was okay. Gaara tried to hide them but he was terrible at it and she didn't really care what they were saying any more than she had in the past.

Fumiko was staying inside to avoid the reporters more for the fact that she always seemed to say the wrong things than that she didn't want to talk to them. She was decent at politics but only in meetings and letters... not giving up was basically how you were good at politics. But when someone who was trained to take your words and twist them for the story, well... she wasn't exactly the best person to think her words through first.

Asuka was overworked, so eventually the bird just hid out with Fumiko and the people of Suna either used their own birds or brought whatever they were trying to send her to the front office to one of Gaara's assistants. She was pretty sure that the other villages (aside from Konoha of course) knew, but it wasn't exactly a secret and there had been a lot of strangers in that crowd, so it probably wouldn't be long.

"You don't have to answer all of those, you know."

"I know." she smiled, not taking her eyes off her brush. "Hello to you too, Gaara. What time is it?"

"Almost midnight," he answered. Behind her, Fumiko could hear him shuffling into the closet to change. The next time he spoke his voice was kind of muffled. "Why are you still awake?"

Fumiko hummed. "I don't get tired, you know. I just lost track of time."

"I got the news from Konoha. Their bird got shot out of the sky, a courier-nin found it where the trees hit the sand. Kumogakure finally responded to our requests, but they still don't believe we should all meet under the threat of the Akatsuki."

"So Kumo lost their jinchuuriki?"

"They haven't said as much, but that's what I assumed as well."

Fumiko sighed and pushed away the stack of papers. Asuka squalled and flapped up onto her shoulder, pecking affectionately at a strand of her hair. She held up the dull end of her writing brush for her to nibble on instead. Ink smeared on her hand, but she didn't really mind.

For some reason the mention of Akatsuki didn't bother her today like it had a few days ago. She just took everything in and thought about it without getting... crazy. "How many is that? Assuming Mai is right, that's yours, the two-tails, and the five tails. Six left, and that's if they haven't taken more."

"Yes."

"All of a sudden..." she shook her head. "Ne, never mind. I don't really want to think about that. Let's talk about the mail."

"Alright," he said. "Like I said before, you don't have to answer all of those."

"But look," she said and lifted up the two identical sets of blue booties someone had sent her, brushing away the package paper. At least one person thought they would be boys. Fumiko smiled. "Aren't they cute? Asuka, no," she chided as the bird tried to nip at the laces. "Noo. Down."

She shooed the bird back onto the desk, then stood, dropping the boots and brush as well. She was already dressed in her pyjamas, because when that messenger had come down with a full separate bag of things just for them, Fumiko had figured she'd be here for a while. There was a neat pile-ish stack of letters and packages addressed to Gaara specifically.

"I'll just finish it up tomorrow," she decided. It was kind of cold now that she realized it was dark out, so she hurried to get under the covers. Poking her head back out, Fumiko mused, "Or maybe start over. This is kind of crazy."

Gaara stepped out of the closet, rolling his shoulders like he was trying to shake off the feeling of his robes. He never really... did anything in them aside from work, so usually he just hung them back up in the closet, and at some point during the end of the week, generally a Saturday or Sunday, the would show up freshly washed, pressed, and folded on the bed.

He paused by the desk to shift some of the stuff around absently. "Are these mine?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Why is it that you have so much more mail than I do about this?"

"I don't." From the bed, Fumiko laughed. "I just know you hate going through it, so if it's addressed to me or both of us I'll read through it. If it's specifically addressed to you though, I leave it."

"Thanks," he said dryly. "I appreciate that."

"Ha ha! Think I'm going to through all of it? There aren't enough hours in the day!"

"Hey," he said suddenly and in his normal voice. Fumiko blinked. He held up an envelope, glancing at her over his shoulder. At her questioning glance, he said, "Look at this. It's from Lee."

"From Lee?" Forget the cold. Fumiko sprung out of bed like a spring, grateful that she hadn't yet taken off her prosthetic. She grabbed Gaara's arm with one hand, then reached out for the letter with the other. "Was it buried and I just didn't see it? Gimmeeee~"

He put it within range of her grasping fingers with a slight amused smile, and immediately she snatched it and hooked her arm through Gaara's so she would have another free hand and stuck her finger under the flap, slowly ripping it open so she wouldn't tear the envelope in half like she had last time.

There was one single sheet of paper, but it spoke volumes.

"Postponed your... unyouthful..." she murmured, eyes flicking through the katakana as quickly as she could read it. "Great, great, great... Shikamaru's doing better, awesome!... He's demanding to know what the babies' names are... oh!"

"'Oh' what?" Gaara asked curiously.

Fumiko laughed in disbelief. "They're all coming."

"What?"

"'Myself, Neji, Tenten, Sakura, Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, Naruto, some guy named Sai, and Hinata have all decided to take a short but certainly youthful vacation to Sunagakure while you reschedule. Kiba and Shino apologize but were sent on a mission with another chuunin... By the time you receive this letter, we'll likely be on the road.'" she read aloud.

"Who's Sai?"

"Lee didn't say 'some guy named'," Fumiko said with a shrug. "I did. I have no clue who he is, but the more the merrier! Too bad Kiba and Shino couldn't make it and gahhhh Gaara we have to come up with godparents!"

"What? Godparents?"

"Yesss!" Lee, Shikamaru and Neji were the first three thoughts that flitted through her head. She didn't really have time to realize that was unbalanced math before deciding that in the long run Shikamaru really wouldn't appreciate being made someone's baby's godparent. "Lee and Neji, please, Gaara, please, please?"

"Uh... sure," he said, looking down at her where she stood trying to psychically make him agree. "I don't really care."

Fumiko gasped. "And Mai! Mai needs to be a godmother definitely!"

"Alright."

She grinned, then paused in thought. "That leaves one more godmother..."

"What about Temari? That way each child will have at least one godparent in Suna." Gaara grimaced slightly. "Plus, I don't really trust anyone else."

"Great!" Fumiko clapped her hands together, crinkling the paper. "Oh, I can't wait to tell them. They'll be so excited! I can take them on that tour of Suna I've always told them, and, and when I do the shower, we can come up with boy and girl names and, I dunno, pick the best ones and-"

"... When was that sent, Fumiko?"

Fumiko stalled so suddenly it was like her voice died. "Huh?" she glanced down at the paper. "Uh... two days ago, why?"

Gaara said nothing, waiting.

Her eyes widened. "Ohmysugar they're coming tomorrow!"

...

~ "Gaara?" ~

...

"Stupid newspapers," Mai muttered.

"If you hate them so much, young lady, why are you hovering about?" the newstand salesman huffed, scowling. He ran the little paper shop, a reinforced wood and cement thing the size of Naruto's Ichiraku Ramen. It was near the front gates, probably so returning shinobi and visitors knew what was going on or what they'd missed.

"Screw off," she said dismissively. "They're all about my sister."

And almost none of them were nice. It was ridiculous- the headlines were nearly all the same, either conspiracy theories, scandal stories, or 'bastard child' reruns. Many chided their lopsided personality match, others wondered if Fumiko was in it for the money, a few misprinted that they were having triplets or quadruplets (the idea made her cringe) more commented on their young age and nearly all of them sonar-ed BASTARD CHILDREN BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK.

It really pissed her off. Fumiko was having babies- little gakis of her very own. Of course she was ready to be a parent. Gaara probably was, and where he faltered her sister would always be there to help him out. What business was it of these reporters' anyway? It wasn't. Stupid bastards that made a living pissing people off.

This stand sold about five or six different papers, and out of them all she could see only one positive article out of the bunch, and it was on the inside page. The headliner was just like all the others, this particular one questioning the pair's moral merit. Pfft. Questioning their morals of all peoples'...

But Mai actually didn't mind the little side-pager. It spoke of them as children for the most part, which was a huge change from the rest. It must have been an older person; they recounted briefly the jinchuuriki and her sister's lives growing up, alone and abandoned. The author touched on hating them and eventually learning to love the little girl's smile and accept the little boy's presence.

A paragraph or two dedicated to Gaara's becoming first an Academy instructor and then Kazekage, and a few sentences to Fumiko's studio. At the bottom of the article, underneath the well-wishes for them and the children, was a grainy black-and-white shot of the two at the podium, looking at each other, Fumiko's eyes bright with laughter and her mouth open wide, Gaara with that little touch of a smile.

It was a good picture. Hopefully whoever had taken it had gotten it in color, and it'd just been printed in black and white for the paper.

Of course she wasn't going to buy it, but she read the article over and over, eyes skimming over parts she memorized. Buying newspapers was stupid, there was a million and three everywhere and you could just ask to see an article. Chances were Gaara had one, anyway.

Mai surveyed the countertops one more time. Damn, couldn't these people realize just how lucky those two were and be done with it?

"Stupid newspapers," someone grouched behind her. Kankuro's voice was easily recognizable. The storekeeper scowled but seemed a little less inclined to call out the Kazekage's older brother than the brat who's elder sister's integrity was being torn apart. "Anything worth looking at?"

"Eh, this one," she said, tapping the print with her fingernail. "Everything else's bullshit."

"I'm sure." He quirked an eyebrow as he came around her side. "What the heck are you doing here, anyway? You don't really strike me as the type to read the Sunday paper."

"I could say the same to you." She let her eyes flicker up to his face and smirked airily. "What's a lazy bastard like you doing all the way out here, so far from the kitchen?"

He shrugged, then smirked back. "Not hungry."

"So you came to get a paper?"

"Not really. I was just wandering around. You're pretty hard to miss with that red top of yours. Thought I'd come say hi." He paused, and Mai could see his eyes glance over the article. He nodded. "Not bad. I think I'll get this one."

"Seriously?" she asked, and matched the seller glare-for-glare.

"I wouldn't," Kankuro advised, reaching into one of his deep pockets before handing the guy a few yen. "You'll probably lose."

Mai laughed at the seller's sour look, a sharp sound that cleared out her chest and bent her forward. "So," she drawled when it finally faded away, "What are you gonna do now, go back to the kitchen?"

"What are you gonna do now, go back to the training fields?"

"Ah, got me there." He rolled up the paper and tucked it under her arm. As he turned to leave, she pushed off the counter she was leaning on and followed along beside him, hands resting on her sword hilts. Her thumbs traced the worn leather. "Anything new?"

"Ja, not really. You?"

"Nah." Actually, she was attempting to learn a highly offensive B-rank Katon jutsu, but it took so much chakra that she was pretty much starting from scratch with chakra-building exercises, so it was hardly noteworthy. Yet. "Just doing the deeds, seeing the sights, you know?"

"Yeah, I know." Sand whipped against their faces so they were both forced to squint as they walked aimlessly through the crowds. Mai was prety sure he had no clue where they were going. "Hey, you ever find anything out about Dahlia Guy?"

"Him? No."

"Still got them?"

"Yeah, the planter's in my room," she admitted. "I guess Shiragiku isn't wrong, I kinda like taking care of it."

"Really?" there was a hint of surprise in his voice. "Who would've thunk Mitsuwa Mai, spitter of flames, master of ashes, user of Katon, would be a gardener? Ah, I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

She laughed again. "Shut up, Baka-Kankuro."

"How old are you, now?"

"Ehh... thirteen. You? Eighteen, right?"

"Almost. Three months."

Mai considered this, reaching up to tug on her earring. "Scary thought. Gonna have a party?"

"Probably not." Kankuro sighed. "It's a huge bother. Temari always makes a big deal out of it. Anyway, there's all this stuff going around with the Akatsuki. I have a feeling we won't be rid of them for a while yet."

"Yeah, I guess so. And Gaara's still trying to get the Summit together, right?"

Kankuro slanted her a sharp look. "How do you know about that?"

"Gaara told me," she lied smoothly with a rise of her shoulders. In reality, Mai knew because she was the one that told him to call for one in the first place, but technically and on paper Gaara came up with it himself and she hadn't spoken out of turn as an ANBU. She doubted Kankuro had even considered the idea. "Fumiko told me about an hour later."

"Huh." Kankuro squinted up at the sun. "Hey, do you feel like-"

"Going to the kitchen?" She grinned.

He pinned her with a deadpan glare. "No," he said through clenched teeth. "Going to my studio."

"Oh." Mai blinked. "I keep forgetting to bug you to let me use your wheel. I need to fix up my swords again." Mai patted the hilts almost affectionately. Forget her Academy set, these ones that Fumiko had had made were killer. They'd gotten her out of many a chakra-deprived situation, that was for sure. Fire style was all well and good, but if you missed or used up all your chakra, it was fists or swords, and swords worked a hell of a lot better without chakra than fists did.

"Do even do anything other than train?" he questioned. Now they were starting to circle through alleyways, backtracking back to the Tower. "I never see you in the fields, but somehow you always train."

"I do stuff," she protested. Couldn't possibly tell him she trained either outside the walls or in ANBU headquarters, one because that was kind of her own thing and the second because she'd get arrested if she did. And sometimes she hit bags back at home. "I hang out with you guys in the Tower and-"

"And what else? You train, you hang out in the Tower?"

"I-" Mai was drawing a sudden blank. Of course she didn't something other than train or practice, she had to. She could do a lot, of course- she could cook well and play cards and swim... she was annoyed to note that a lot of things she was thinking of- marksmanship and wrestling and martial arts and jogging and swordsmanship- were all training things.

"Serious?" Kankuro snorted. "You look so deprived."

"I go on missions," she said lamely.

"You just made it worse. You don't do anything else?"

"I guess not. But I don't need to like flower arrangement or stars or sand castles or whatever to be a good shinobi." She scowled. "It's not like you don't work on your puppets all the time."

"Yeah, 'cause it's quirky and I like doing it, but I do other things, you know."

"Good for you. I'll let you know when I learn to play the flute." she snapped, suddenly defensive. "It's not like I have anything more productive to do. There's not much to do in Suna, unless you want to play in the sand or get a job selling stupid shit on every street corner."

"Okay, okay," Kankuro said, raising both hands in surrender. Mai flushed. "Jeez, calm down."

They had reached the Tower. Usually at this point Mai would break off and go train, but now she didn't want to do that for the point of it and if she didn't use his blade wheel now it'd be awhile before she could nag him into letting her back in his studio, so she followed him through the big huge doors to his workshop-with-a-bed.

...

~ "What?" ~

...

Lee swept her up into an excited hug that sent her legs pinwheeling into the air.

"It has been too long, Fumikoooo!"

"Hi, Lee!" she yelped, clutching his neck in surprise so she wouldn't fall. Behind him were all the others as they checked in with Sunagakure's village entrance security, flashing their Konoha IDs. Sakura and Choji had already gotten through and were being themselves in all the little ways that hadn't changed at all, Sakura grinning cheerfully and telling Lee to put her down in her condition, Choji eating a bag of Extra-salted Barbeque-flavored potato chips and waving between bites.

"H-hello," Hinata said somewhere behind her, having struck off in Gaara's direction when she realized she wouldn't be able to break up Fumiko's crowd. "It's been a while, Gaara-san."

"Isn't this the first we've spoken?"

"Oh! W-well, yes, but I've seen you around Konoha... and Fumiko-san speaks highly of you."

"I see..."

"Hello," someone said as Lee finally put her down, still talking loudly about all the things they would do and the many laps he would run around Sunagakure to get used to the sand and the sun. Fumiko turned and smiled.

He was pale white. Not pasty, but really, really white, whiter than copy paper. Or maybe his pale skin was just enhanced by his dark hair and dark eyes and dark clothes. He looked like an outline sketch, and spoke in a lilted, happy-toned kind of way. It seemed a little off, but he was smiling right back, and he was reaching to shake her hand.

"Hi!" Fumiko said and took his hand. "You must be Sai! I'm Fumiko."

"Yes," he said. "You are very attractive."

"Uh, thanks?" Fumiko blinked. He was still holding her hand, shaking it robotically and deliberately and smiling with his eyes closed. "And you're very... actually, you look kind of cool. Do you sunburn easily?"

"My name is Gaara." Gaara's flat, distinctly unimpressed voice floated over his shoulder. "You must be Sai."

"And you, Gaara-sama of the Hidden Sand."

"Please excuse him," Sakura said apologetically as she realized what was going on, breaking off from her conversation with Tenten to wave at them like she was flagging them down. "He's still learning about emotions."

"Learning about emotions?" Fumiko asked quizzically. "But isn't he friends with Uzumaki Naruto?"

Like he'd been summoned, the bright-haired bright-eyed ninja in bright orange suddenly materialized, bounding with his long legs to stand beside the three of them plus Hinata, who was much more reservedly making her way closer.

"Gaara!" he shouted, nearly jumping on him in his hyper intensity, grinning ear to ear. Gaara almost seemed to flinch. "What the hell are you doing, becoming a dad?! Man, I seriously wasn't expecting that in Fumiko's letter, dattebayo!"

"Naruto!"

"Oww! Sakuraaa!"

...

~ "So will we?" ~

...

Before they headed out about the village sightseeing, the group filed straight to the Tower to put away their things.

Nobody knew exactly how long they were staying, so they had all brought one or two bags of things of clothes and other necessities. A lot of them had brought sunscreen, which was a relief, since a lot of people forgot.

Usually, if there was a little more warning, Gaara would have helped arrange a place for them to stay in a hotel or unlived in apartment, but considering that she'd figured out they were coming at twelve AM the night before, it was less hassle to just give everyone rooms in the Tower's guest floors to visit in.

On the way to the village gates, Fumiko had been nearly swarmed by people, not necessarily reporters but random civilians and ninjas that wanted to wish her well or ask a million questions. This was barely deterred by Gaara at all; he was getting the same treatment.

But the influx of Konoha ninja around her chattering and talking and in Lee and Uzumaki Naruto's case being exuberant and loud seemed to scare them off. Fumiko was right in the middle of it, chatting with Ino and Hinata, Gaara to her left having a very one-sided conversation with Uzumaki Naruto.

"So you never clarified, Fumiko, when're you due?" Ino questioned almost slyly. "You lucky thing, you don't look different at all! Well, actually, if I think about it, you do look a little bigger cup-wise, if you get what I mean."

"I'm somewhere in week nine or ten," she said. "Dunno exactly when I'm due, though..."

"You look very nice," Hinata said quietly.

Meanwhile in her other ear, she could hear "I guess it's kind of exciting, though huh? Wonder if they'll turn out anything like you! You looked pretty creepy and weird when we were younger, though, no offense..."

"Naruto, that's so rude," Sakura chided.

"You should've been there when Lee got the letters- did you know it was three AM when he did?" Tenten snorted. "He came bursting into my house yelling his head off about youth and passion..."

"I very nearly attacked him," Neji admitted. "I wasn't expecting it."

Gaara's facial expression read I don't blame you, but he didn't say it out loud, just shook his head and crossed his arms as they walked. "It came as a surprise to us as well. Fumiko tried to tackle me in the hospital lobby room."

"I can see that," Choji said thoughtfully, rooting around for the last few crumbles in his bag. The plastic crinkled loudly. "You seem pretty excited, Fumiko."

She grinned. "I am!"

"Urg, it's all such a drag," Shikamaru muttered from the tail end of the group behind them. "I mean, we have a big huge battle, and then we have to travel all the way to Suna..."

"Oh, hush, Shikamaru," Ino said hotly. "At least try to act like you want to be here."

"He's excited too," Choji said agreeably. "He was smiling when he told me about it. His dad seemed kinda surprised, though."

"Are the two of you getting married?" Sai was walking in front of them and spoke without turning his head at all, so the Suna wind carried his voice backward. "It seems improper for such a young couple, especially yourselves considering that Gaara-san is Kazekage, to have b-"

"Sai, don't you dare!"

"I apologize if that came out as rude."

Sai didn't really say anything after that, just nursed the growing bump on his head.

"No, we're not." Fumiko paused. "Well, not before they're born, anyway-"

"So cute!" Ino gushed. "You would make such a perfect bride, Fumiko, you're pretty like a doll and so darn thin. And Gaara, I bet you look downright handsome in a yukata. Call me when you do, I'll do all your flower arrangement for you!"

"We're here," Gaara announced without commenting on Ino's handsome remark. Fumiko looked up over Sai and Lee's heads at the Tower, with its big Wind kanji and many small windows.

"The first one onto the guest floor gets to pick their rooms!" Lee announced immediately, and took off running at the protests of his friends, startling various Suna citizens as he went.

...

~ Gaara could feel heat crawling up his neck to flood his face, but Fumiko didn't seem embarrassed at all. She just smiled at him, and her teeth glinted in the dark by the moonlight shining through their he blushed, it was usually because of her. Just like what was happening now: he could feel her warmth beside him, could see her sunny smile, and she'd just put him on the spot with a question he didn't want to answer. ~

...

"I still do not understand why you prefer this over Konoha," Lee muttered. "Sand keeps getting in my leg warmers."

"Then take them off," Neji reasoned, and immediately his face soured like he regretted it.

"But, but! They are a manly gift from my manly-"

"If you say that one more time, I'm going to hit you." That was Tenten. Team Guy, used to both speed and Lee, had been the first to unpack and settle in before preparing to leave.

Gaara had had to go back to work, Uzumaki Naruto had followed him, determined to learn more about being a Kage, Shikamaru was taking a nap, Hinata and Sai were still unpacking, Choji had broken off into the kitchen saying he and Shikamaru would catch up later, and Sakura and Ino wanted to take a break from moving around before going out with Fumiko later to check out the local shops.

"But-"

"What do you like so much about this, Fumiko?" Neji asked to divert Lee's attention. "It seems barren."

"That's because it is barren, unless you count tumbleweed and cacti," Fumiko said with a short laugh. "But can't you feel the sand in the air? It's so warm. And look at the dunes! Suna has a lot to look at if you try."

"I do see all of that," Tenten groaned. "But I really don't see why it's so interesting. It looks like a bunch of sand and buildings to me..."

"Well, wait till we get to the market area. It's different there."

"Fumiko-sama!" someone called from the street, waving. Otokaze, on his way to the Tower, probably. "What's up?"

"Ne, Otokaze!" Fumiko called back. "These are my friends from Konoha! They're here for my baby shower!"

"Hey, friends from Konoha. See you later, Fumiko-sama!"

"You're pretty popular," Tenten observed.

"Did you ever reopen your Gallery, Fumiko?" Lee asked. "You should have seen it, Neji, Tenten, it was amazing. Lights and colors everywhere, like they were floating off the canvas!"

"Sounds exciting." Tenten sighed. "Are we almost to the market area? I want to see if I can get some new inks. Sunagakure supposedly has a specialization in seal work, so I'm hoping they'll have stronger Fuuinjutsu supplies here."

"There's a lot of-"

"What in hell are you all doing here?"

"Mai!" Fumiko grinned, rubbing her neck sheepishly as her sister loped down the side of a building to approach them. "Sorry, I forgot to tell you at breakfast this morning. I got a letter from Lee last night that they were coming."

"So the shower's still on?"

"Yes, and Fumiko has promised a surprise for you, Neji and I, when we attend!" Lee exclaimed. "I almost can not wait!"

"Yeah, almost," Tenten grumbled. "I don't think I've really met you, yet. You're Fumiko's sister, right?"

"Yeah. Mai." she said after she hit the sand. She smirked slightly. "I don't remember your name. You're the girl with the scrolls, right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

Mai nodded. "Seriously, though." She spread her arm out wide, indicating the expanse of sand and hourglass houses. "Welcome to Suna, and all that. It's not much, but it's home. Heading off to market? Making something special tonight, sis?"

"If I don't get sick." Fumiko laughed. "Feel like curry? Lee's request."

Mai shrugged, grinned again. Her hands dropped down to rest on her sword belts, thumbs hooking behind them like pockets. "If it's spicy, I'm in. What time? Is everyone getting special tours, too?"

"Mai-chan! We must certainly spar before the week is over!" Lee grinned, almost twitching with excitement. "I want to see how much you have improved since we last engaged in Youthful battle! Loser-"

"Runs a hundred laps around the village, yeah," Mai said dismissively. "Settle for five and around the pool and you're on. Not that I'll lose, but I need to practice my swimming anyway."

"Yes, of course! Loser swims ten laps around the pool!"

"You're going to have to tell me how you did that," Tenten said, blinking. "I'd like to learn how to stop it. Also, there's a pool here?"

"Not really." Mai said, lifting her hand to jerk a thumb in the reservoirs' direction. "It's the water tower supply. It all gets refiltered on its way through the pipes, so no big deal if you're sweaty. Not many people swim, though, here. Not many know how."

"And you can?" Neji asked curiously.

Her sister made a face. "Well enough."

"What about you?" Neji cut his white eyes to Fumiko's. "Can you swim?"

"Like a rock." Fumiko giggled. "I've never actually tried. The deepest water I've ever been in is Konoha's hot springs. I'd probably drown. Hey, Mai, how's dad been, before I forget? I wanted to introduce everyone to my mom."

"He probably won't get over it." Mai sighed, a dramatic sound, and rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about it. I think it's finally gotten through his thick head that you won't listen to him." She grinned. "You definitely threw him for a loop. He bothers you, take a quick step forward, see if he jumps."

...

~ Yes, of course. Definitely. Even if he wasn't in love with her, she was carrying his child, and he wouldn't let her go through anything alone. But that didn't, under any circumstances, mean that he felt comfortable answering the question. Eventually, though, her eyes got to be too much, and he sighed. ~

...

By the time they went home, Tenten had found her Fuuinjutsu supplies, Fumiko had gotten the ingredients for both spicy and mild curry recipes, and it was getting darker out as the sun went down. Mai was already at home. Shikamaru was still sleeping, so Fumiko decided no to wake him. If he woke up for dinner he woke up for dinner. If he didn't she'd leave a tupperware in the refrigerator for him.

After promising Sakura and Ino she would take them out for a girls' day tomorrow, Fumiko got to work on the curry. Lee helped out, getting whatever spice or food she asked for, mixing what she asked him to mix, mincing what she asked him to mix. He wasn't actually that bad in the kitchen. When questioned further, he admitted that he lived alone and cooked for himself.

It was helpful, because for the past week or so Fumiko had discovered something about pregnancy almost as inconvenient as morning sickness: she had to pee, like, every ten minutes. Lee took over for her every time she had to run off to her and Gaara's room (which luckily was right next to the kitchen) taking up the spoon and loudly commenting on how good it was going to taste.

Choji appeared almost as soon as Fumiko had everything in the pot, claiming he could smell it from his designated room on the floor below them. Eventually all the others trickled in from the guest floor to the kitchen except for Shikamaru, which Fumiko had kind of expected. Three days was a lot of travel for anyone who didn't really like travelling.

The kitchen table could expand, pulling out lengthwise, with an extra chunk of sanded wood identical to it to place along the wood expanders. Once you put the tablecloth back on, it just looked like a bigger table, and once she got Kankuro and Mai to haul out the spare chairs from the basement, there was enough room for everyone- Lee, Neji, Tenten, Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, Sai, Ino, Choji, Hinata, Temari, Kankuro, Mai and herself.

There was another empty seat, just in case Shikamaru or maybe even Gaara wandered in. Fumiko seriously doubted Gaara would be able to show, though. He was already trying to get ahead of his work so he could be at her shower, and he had taken off almost half a day to go with her to greet the Konoha-nin.

Sai and Hinata helped set the table, putting out nice plates and cloth napkins and silverware. Both of them apparently knew how you were supposed to put the forks and knives and spoons. Ino had used her free time to pull out an old-looking crystal vase and head down to the greenhouses for a flower arrangement with mostly blue and green, more sprigs than flowers. That was placed right in the center.

With a flourish, Sakura produced a bottle of sweet-smelling wed wine. This she took out while Fumiko had her back turned working on the chili, filling wineglasses somebody found in one of the many many cabinets halfway. One of these was put at every placement's except for Lee's. When Fumiko noticed this, Tenten and Neji hurriedly assured her that it was for a very good reason.

She personally had never drunk anything with alcohol, but Sakura promised she would like it.

The kitchen smelled like curry and spilled spices, warm and alive with people and conversations and the clinking of silverware as she brought over two pots of curry, wild rice, steamed vegetables and fresh bread she'd baked that morning in anticipation of her guests. They didn't know that she still had nearly an entire double chocolate mud cake in the fridge.

As they ate, they exchanged stories and caught up.

Uzumaki Naruto and Sakura started off running with their fight at Tenchi bridge, It explained a lot, including the appearance of Sai, who was apparently Sasuke's replacement for Team Seven. Ino recounted their fight with Hidan and Kakuzu. Choji chimed in every now and then to downsize exaggerations, but mostly it was an amazing story. Uzumaki Naruto interrupted constantly to talk about his new jutsus and skills he'd used in the fight.

Of course everyone had done various other things, Hinata and Neji talked about their training and new leaps they'd take with the Hyuga style. Tenten talked about her seals, Sakura her work at the hospital, Lee various missions he'd completed since they last met. Naruto was working on a few new jutsu and was still working on Wind style ninjutsu.

Hinata also brought up her two absent teammates. Mai was a little disappointed that Kiba hadn't shown up, but agreed that he would probably suck as a guest for a baby shower anyway. At that Temari snarked on Shikamaru's absence and wondered aloud if he would even bother to show at the party. Kankuro just shrugged, stating that there would be so many people there anyway that it wouldn't matter.

Throughout all this, Fumiko ate her food and joined in the conversations happily, taking small sips of the wine, which was dark red and tasted like strong, zingy strawberries and plums, almost tart but still sweet. It wasn't bad. Fumiko sprinkled a little sugar into the wine glass, an action that caused the entire table to burst into laughter.

"What?" she asked, smile twitching in and out of a grin. The wine burned her throat but left her stomach pleasantly warm, which seemed to travel through her veins as the meal went on. "What's so funny?"

Neji and Tenten exchanged glances as did Ino and Choji and Hinata.

"It's just that it's been forever since we last saw you do that," Sakura cut in at last.

'You've changed less than I thought!" Ino laughed. "I remember you used to do that when you ate barbeque with us."

"Really?"

"Yes," Hinata said with a small smile. "It's reassuring to know that you still..."

"Yeah, Fumiko-chan," Uzumaki Naruto cut in. Sometimes he forgot to drop the honorific, especially when he was excited or, aparently, whenever he drank wine. "You look funny without your cape and your pouch thing you used to wear all the time. What happened to that? You don't carry that stuff anymore."

"I lost it in the desert," she answered and realized that she'd never actually told anyone what happened during that fight. Fumiko looked across and down the table and Kankuro, who shrugged and picked up the thread of conversation. She added bits and pieces occasionally, and explained how she'd ended up at the pile of rocks that'd been their village entrance for a while.

Everyone gasped and sent quick looks in her direction at every other description, and when Kankuro hit the spot where she froze Deidara in the sky, she felt all eyes on her. Fumiko averted her eyes to her plate and took another swig of wine, which nearly drained it. At her right, Hinata refilled it carefully, with a little less than had been there to start with.

"You put an Akatsuki under a Genjutsu?" Uzumaki Naruto exclaimed. Not everyone seemed surprised- Lee already knew, as did Tenten and Neji, but it didn't seem like they''d actually thought to tell the others.

"Wait, wait," Kankuro said, holding up his hands. He was getting really into the story as he went further along, especially now that Sakura had manifested two more bottles of wine that apparently she'd brought for the shower but figured that if Suna was paying for it Suna would get some, and anyway if a bunch of strangers showed up three bottles wouldn't have been enough anyway. "It gets better."

Mai drained a third of her second glass. "So Kankuro's puppeting all over the place, trying to fight Sasori and defend Fumiko at the same time to make sure Deidara doesn't get anywhere, and Fumiko's actually forcing Deidara to move-"

"Shh, shut it, this is my story and I was there," Kankuro interrupted. "Anyway, like she said, I had to dive and push her out of the way so she wouldn't get bisected by Sasori Akasuna's puppet tail and it got me in the chest. You remember that, right? I got poisoned and fell over sideways."

"Yeah," Sakura said. "That was really bad."

"Deidara fell and crashed," Fumiko said. "I managed to disrupt his chakra long enough to kill his clay bird."

"Wait, don't say anything yet." Kankuro smirked, then went on to explain Fumiko's almost invisible bruises, and how he'd accidentally poisoned her with paralytic trying to puncture Sasori's defenses. "And so Sasori leaves me to die-"

"You stopped him from killing you by launching a puppet piece despite being poisoned and also managed to get a piece of his clothes, which helped us find Gaara later," Fumiko put in. "Don't forget that."

"-leaves me to die, and goes for Fumiko, and-... Wait. How come he didn't kill you? That bruise on your neck, I never even asked how you got it. He hit you with the tail, didn't he? That should've cut your head off."

"I must've just got lucky-"

"Bullshit."

Fumiko wanted to sigh but found it strangely hard to get melancholy, her blood was buzzing with warm-strawberry like sweet burnt fruit, and for some reason she felt really tingly and happy. "Yeah, umm, my necklace broke, and the sand sort of protected me, like- like Gaara's Ultimate Defense."

"Even unconscious and half dead Gaara saved you, huh?" Tenten mused. "Gosh, Fumiko, your life is like a romantic fairy tail. Kind of weird and cheesy, but still. I envy you." She sighed, swirled her fork in her food to mix curry and wild rice together. "You'd never expect it, looking at Gaara-"

"Back to the subject," Temari pressed.

"Oh, right. Anyway, I guess Fumiko's necklace saves her life, but halfway through- she told me this- she, while flying through the air with a blade against her throat and paralyzed with poison, sends out a Genjutsu of herself dead as hell and pushes it through Sasori's puppet body, and he completely bought it and left us both alive in the desert."

"Two members of Akatsuki?" Sakura demanded. Fumiko knew that she too was skilled with Genjutsu but preferred to use taijutsu in a fight.

Fumiko blushed, although that might have been the alcohol. It wasn't that big of a deal, she'd just done what she needed to do to survive. Really, it was remarkable it had even worked at all with the amount of concentration she put into it, everything had been instinctual... She spooned more curry into her mouth, hoping the mild hot spiciness would wake her up a little.

"I guess so," she mumbled around her food.

"That's quite impressive," Sai said. "You might want to pursue your skill further. Although by now Akatsuki most likely knows of it now..."

"Is Gaara coming or not?"

Ino's sudden topic change made her pause in chewing her food as everyone's heads swiveled to look at her.

"What?" Ino said defensively, putting down her fork and crossing her arms with a huff. "I mean, he has all these guests and he's not even showing up for dinner? He's the Kazekage, shouldn't he at least show up for dinner?"

"He almost never eats with us," Temari said before Fumiko could swallow and answer. "Fumiko usually brings him up something to eat while he's working. Gaara's a busy man, and he can't always accommodate for others."

"He wants to," Fumiko answered, having finally choked down her mouthful. "But Temari's right, he always has so much work to do."

"That's for sure," Uzumaki Naruto said, sulking. "All he did today was sign papers and order things."

"Anyway, he's trying to clear up his schedule so he can be at the baby shower with me," she continued. "He doesn't really get a whole lot of days off anymore like he used to. I would usually help him, but I want to hang out with you guys. We can play board games or something."

Fumiko hiccuped. They all looked at her funny.

"Board games?" Neji asked uncertainly. Lee might have said something had his mouth not been full of his fourth serving of curry. Mai laughed. Her face was a little red too, although it was harder to tell with her taned skin. Fumiko suddenly realized that not only was her sister thirteen and drinking red wine (who knew how many glasses she'd already had) but they were all underage and drinking red wine.

Oh, well. Like Kankuro liked to say, 'Old enough to kill, old enough to get smashed.'

Not that she'd killed anyone. She thought. Fumiko's head was fuzzy.

Hinata for some reason took her glass away when it got to about a quarter full, switching it for a glass of water. Fumiko found the condensation on the side of it interesting and followed the drip with her eyes. "Yeah. Board games like me and Gaara play."

"Is there dessert?" Choji asked suddenly. Fumiko thought that he probably hadn't actually payed attention to most of the dinner conversation aside from what included him. He got even stranger looks than she had for saying that Gaara played board games. "What?"

...

~ "... Yes." ~

...

Fumiko was giggling when she brought him dinner.

Gaara raised an eyebrow at Lee, who laughed sheepishly.

"Sakura-chan brought wine. Hinata took her glass away when she started to look confused. I did not have any myself. I am what you would call a lightweight... I probably would have destroyed your home if I had."

"How much did she have?" He eyed the tray in Lee's hands. Fumiko kept reaching for it, but the green Konoha ninja expertly lifted and lowered it and moved it to the side to keep her from grabbing at it. It had a plate of chili with rice and vegetables, and next to it was a smaller plate with a cut of the cake Fumiko had made after his formal announcement to the village.

"Barely two glasses. They were not full." Lee shook his head. "Sakura apologized, but insisted I bring you some as well. Temari pointed me in the direction of the thermos. Fumiko does this often?"

"Almost every day for breakfast and dinner, why?"

"I was just curious."

"Gaara," Fumiko said suddenly, eyes zeroing in on his face. "I had wine. Pine noir."

"I can see that."

"It tasted like burnt strawberries and plums. You should try it."

"I'd rather not." Gaara tilted his head in the direction of her stool, which sat next to the desk. "Why don't you sit down?"

"Oh, okay. Bye, Lee."

Lee blinked as she tottered carefully to the seat, staring at her feet and putting each foot forward deliberately. When she finally sat down, she looked at Gaara with a grin. He smiled back slightly. Lee stepped up and searched for a moment before placing the tray of food and the thermos on a mostly empty stretch of desk.

"I really am sorry about that. I did not notice she was getting... tipsy."

...

~ "Sweet!" she grinned. "Of course, you still have to ask me. Even if I already know." ~

...

Mai woke up with a pretty spectacular headache. She'd only ever had beer before and obviously had misjudged the similarities between that and wine...

"Gah," she muttered.

Where in the hell was she, anyway? As her eyes focused, she squinted against the minimal lighting. Who's room was this- too light to be Kankuro's, not breezy enough to be Temari's. Maybe one of the empty rooms on the guest floor, although there couldn't be too many of those left. The darkness out the window at her left as she sat up was soft.

Once again, even with a hangover, she had managed to wake up just before first light. She watched as the first few baby rays of light peeked between the buildings she could see through the glass.

"Do even do anything other than train?" Kankuro questioned. Now they were starting to circle through alleyways, backtracking back to the Tower. "I never see you in the fields, but somehow you always train."

Mai stood abruptly, cursing at but otherwise ignoring the splitting headache as she did so, and stormed out of her room and down the hall, muttering to herself as she simultaneously try to remember what had happened after dinner and recall how to climb stairs before she reached them, and then she stormed up those too.

She stormed slightly more quietly through the Kazekage suite- or at least she tried to, but for all she knew she was stomping like an elephant. But she was stealthy by nature, or at least now after years of training she was, so she was hoping that subconscious would work, well, subconsciously.

When she reached Kankuro's room she tried to open the door and realized it was locked.

Of course it was. He was a ninja. Well, Gaara didn't, but Gaara literally couldn't be attacked in his sleep.

Normally, she would've subtly tried to pick the lock with a senbon or two, but her vision was sort of swimming and her pulse was pounding through her skull so she doubted she would be able to pull it off. So Mai just grabbed the doorknob, focused chakra in her arm, wrist, and fingers, and twisted sharply.

There was a quick snap, the sound of the lock breaking. She could pay for it no problem, she was swimming in yen earned from regular and ANBU missions alike, and never really bought anything but weapons, punching bags, and the occasional street-vendor snack.

Mai opened the door and ducked automatically to avoid the kunai with deadly poison that she remembered at the last second Kankuro rigged to the inside of his locked door at night. She took another step forward, felt the trip wire against her ankle and rolled forward in time that the handleless scythe blade cut into the ground a hair's bredth from the back of her heel.

Okay, so under normal circumstances, when the plank under her foot embedded with poisoned senbon at the top end she had been forced to land on when she rolled into a crouch sprang up at her face, she would have been able to push off it with her other foot and either break it or use the strength of a reinforced block of wood to throw herself backward, tuck and flip and hit the ground on the other side of the scythe blade.

But she had a goddamn headache and a goddamn hangover and a goddamn time limit here.

So she didn't really see the shine of senbon until it was half a centimeter from her face and just twisted backwards to avoid it. Her thigh smacked into the side of the scythe, which was just high enough above floor level to trip her over, and it took all of her flexibility to avoid bisecting herself, throwing her hands backwards and catching the floor, bending her elbows and kicking up her feet so her elbows bent awkwardly toward her feet and she hit her shoulder blades hard as she fell.

Mai avoided the blade, knees curling into her chest, feet in the air.

And of course her fucking head hit the fucking wire, which was apparently set with two fucking charges.

Excuse her French. This headache sucked ass and so did movement and so did Kankuro, setting it up so that anyone who survived the string of weaponry would hit the wire again and trigger it to land in a different spot.

Mai cursed, eyes flying open wide, at the glimmer of weapon about to cut her head off. If she sat up she would either lose her legs or at least seriously screw up her tendons, and by the time she thought of that it was too late to try and roll to either side, and anyway, stupid paranoid Kankuro had probably booby trapped-

"Shit!"

The blade suddenly gushed sideways and out the door like it'd been pushed by a sudden wind. The endge of it almost clipped her nose the long way, it was that close.

Well, good.

She didn't want to die drunk and cursing Kankuro's paranoia in her head.

If she was going out, she was going out loud.

Mai levered up gingerly with her elbows, wincing at the twinge in both her shoulders and her head and being careful to keep her legs raised only managing to lift up to her tail bone. She couldn't even straighten out all the way on her butt. Stupid Kankuro. Stupid traps. Stupid hangover. "Ow, hell, what the..."

"Mai?"

"Ehh, shhhh, Kankuro, shut up, not so loud."

"What in hell are you doing in my-" The light flicked on.

"OW, damn it, turn the-"

"-lucky I saw your shirt or I wouldn't have-"

"-have a goddamn hangover so stop yelling at me, damn it-"

"How did you even get in here?"

"Your door was unlocked."

"No, it wasn't!" There was a rattling sound as Kankuro tested his knob, then a frustrated snort. "You broke my door?"

"I have a hangover! It's hard to be freaking subtle right now, okay?!"

"What..."

Mai turned her head back upside down, blinking at the new voice. Kankuro as well twitched and looked to the door.

Neji gave them both a flat stare. Mai realized then that his room must have been below this one, and he'd probably heard all of the crazy thumping noises as she tried not to die and avoided various flying/launching blades/wires/pointy things.

"Fuck off," she muttered. "And turn the lights off when you do, I have a hangover."

Neji shook his head. "I'm not even going to ask."

"Well, I am," Kankuro said after his footsteps faded away down the hall, closing his door. By now, the sun had already mostly risen, red light flooding the clouds outside his window. "Why are you setting off my booby traps?"

"Why are you setting so many goddamn booby traps?"

"Apparently, I need to set more."

"Nah, that last one would've gotten me. Now help me up, this hurts."

Kankuro raised his eyebrows but complied, pulling her back away from the scythe before hauling her to her feet. Mai rolled both her shoulders once he'd let go, trying to ease the sharp muscle pain. When one of them popped louder than the other, she realized she'd dislocated it in her fall. Not that it really mattered, it'd reset. Her hangover hurt worse. "Thanks."

"No problem." He yawned loudly, then laughed when she turned to face him. "I have to admit, you just did an awesome job of not dying."

"Woulda done better without this stupid headache. Did you push away the scythe? And you've got to teach me how you double-rigged that wire. I have one in the room I sleep in, but when I tried it only let go both at once. Ow."

"I woke up, wondering who was rolling all over my room, saw your shirt and figured it was you about to kick, and used chakra strings to push it away." Kankuro shrugged. "And it's not really that hard, just a wraparound mechanism. Anyway... you obviously wanted something. Can't it wait? I was having a really good dream."

"No, no, no, it can't. I would love to drag you up to the roof and prove my point, but I need advil soon and it'd take too long anyway. Anything else going to try and kill me if I move around?"

"Only if you go near my bed, why?"

"Look at the window." She went to grab at his sleeve and realized only then that he was wearing nothing but a pair of loose black pants, hands in his pockets. His face was still sleepy, brown hair tousled. She just motioned him forward with one hand and walked toward the window, fingers she used to motion going instantly to her throbbing head. "See?"

"See what?" He yawned again, took a few long slow strides. "Oh, it's getting lighter out. Gaara and Fumiko'll be up soon."

"It's better when you're roof-hopping, or on the wall."

"Huh?"

"The sunrise, Baka-Kankuro. The sunrise and the sunsets, I see them every day."

"The hell do you wake up with a hangover before the sun comes up for? What's wrong with you?" He snorted. "I always knew you were unnatural."

"Shut up." Mai really couldn't get any louder than that. "I don't mean to. I just always wake up right before sunset, then I go out and train or- stuff, come back for breakfast, head out again, and don't head home until after sundown."

"And this is important because?"

"It's something I do that's useless." Mai grinned wryly, covering one of her eyes. "That I like doing. I guess this seemed like a better idea when I was still tired and headache-delusional... you know you almost just killed me, right?"

"Oh, I get it." Kankuro laughed. "I didn't realize I'd pissed you off so bad. That's what this is about?"

Mai bristled. "If I didn't have a hangover right now I'd-"

"Yeah, yeah," he said with a lazy grin. "Let's the two of us go to the kitchen and get you some aspirin, okay?"

She paused, startled. Then she glanced at the window one more time, where the sky was almost blue. It was the first sunrise she'd missed in almost a year, and she was kind of embarrassed that she'd barged into someone's room at stupid o clock in the morning and almost committed unintentional suicide just to tell them she watched the sun to prove him wrong about something he'd already forgotten about.

She looked back over at him and grinned. "Yeah, okay."

...

~ Gaara was absolutely positive that his face was as red as his hair, and thanked whatever Kami existed that it was night and his back was to the window so she couldn't see. "Of course." ~

...


	13. Death

...

~ "Gaara, look!" ~

...

Fumiko had, in the last two weeks, done a lot more than she probably had in the past two months.

First, as promised, she had gone out shopping with Ino and Sakura, an all-day affair. Both girls loved Suna styled clothes, the puffy shirts and scarves and headbands, but they also liked the fancier kinds usually only worn by tourists, which Fumiko owned a lot of (courtesy of speech clothes-people) and so she was more a judge of color and road map than anything else.

"What about this one?" Ino suggested, holding up a light pink sleeveless top that fell down her waist.

"No, pink is my color." Sakura argued before Fumiko could say a word, instead picking out a dark tan, almost brown top with a belt a few shades lighter to hold the billowy fabric to the waist. Its sleeves trailed down to the elbow. "It'll make your hair seem even blonder, Ino-pig."

"Dumb Billboard-brow, don't you know anything about fashion? I'd look like a low-class commoner in that." Both girls looked to where Fumiko was sitting on a stool by the dressing-rooms, humming and sketching on her prosthetic. Fumiko blinked and put her foot down as she realized they were staring.

"Hey, Fumiko-chan, what do you think?" Ino asked.

"Oh, uh..." She glanced around. "Uh, Ino, try the collared shirts over there, the light tan ones with dark trim and half-sleeves. Brown pants would probably work... like, real brown, not dark or light brown. Sakura, there's stuff over there in a few different shades of blue, the darker the better, but we don't have much... match it with that sandy color we have everywhere."

They blinked. Fumiko smiled. They glanced at each other, looked back at her, and blinked again.

"Fumiko..." Sakura said uncertainly. "Why do you dress like that?"

After that girls' day out, Fumiko had come home and made dinner for everyone, eaten, brought some food up to Gaara, gone to sleep helping him in his office, woke up a few hours later to find Gaara still working and everyone but Shikamaru still awake, and played board games well into the night. Eventually the time picked off everyone except for Lee, who could probably go for days without sleeping at all.

Lee beat her bad at everything except for Sorry, which Fumiko won every single time.

The next day she had taken Choji and Shikamaru out for dinner at a Suna-delicacy-styled buffet where you could have various native plant and game-based foods with bland bread and sweet butters made with pureed cacti. Choji ate and ate and ate and made fast friends with the head chef, who said he had good taste and encouraged Fumiko to invite him over more often.

Shikamaru didn't say much of anything despite Fumiko's attempts at conversation, merely picking at a plate of food that lasted him for hours and muttering about things being a drag.

"So, Shikamaru, do you like that?" She motioned with her chopsticks to his plate of giant scorpion venom steaks, something he'd initially found to be very disconcerting. "Most tourists don't really ever try it, but it's good, ne?"

"I still think I might die from lethal venom poisoning," he groaned. "What a drag."

Fumiko herself was eating rolled pastry balls with blended date so that the juice seeped out of it, kind of like a jelly donut, only smaller. They were really good, especially when she realized you could ask specifically for powdered sugar. Now she kind of wanted to figure out how to make them. "No, I swear they-"

"Hey, guys, have you tried the desserts?" Choji plunked down into the booth on Shikamaru's right with a bowl full of ice cream. "I'm pretty sure half of it is cactus stuff but if you look around, you can find things you'd find in Konoha, Shikamaru. It's pretty good!"

Fumiko also helped Tenten with her fuuinjutsu on and off for a day or two in between helping Gaara and hanging out with the rest of her Konoha friends, when she needed it or ran out of inks or papers or needed to go back out to market.

The seal user was getting pretty good at it, too, to the point where Fumiko eventually pulled out her drafted kill-seals (which greatly disturbed her) and asked for help, since she only really knew how to seal things and how to make hospital-seals.

"Eh, Fumiko, are you sure about this?" Tenten asked as she studied her two or three decent notebook pages that didn't explode or catch fire when she tried to use them. "I mean, I can see where this went wrong, but, like, are you sure?"

"Yeah." Fumiko smiled. "It's fine, Tenten. I just really need to make these work."

"Well..." Tenten bit her lower lip, scanning over the page, trailing her fingers over the kanji. "I personally have never made offensive seals, and I don't think anyone's made one quite like this. I mean, using water to lead lightening into the blood stream to electrocute cells and paralyze the heart... and this would only work part of the time, when your opponent had an Earth or Fire Release."

"I know," Fumiko said quietly.

"Oh. So is this for someone in particular?"

Fumiko hesitated. "Maybe."

Tenten shrugged. "Okay. Not my business. But your Roaring Tiger here is unbalanced..."

She also happened to wander to the training arena in time to watch Lee during his spar with Mai and subsequent thirty laps around the pool despite the fact that he had won. It had been pretty close, though, and she'd ended up healing a slightly severed tendon in his left leg from Mai's swords. Lee was fast- very fast.

Mai wasn't very happy at all when she woke up and realized that she'd been completely knocked out.

"I swear I woulda got him if he was human," she muttered as Lee gurgled out a tangent about Youth and Passion as he swam around and around and around the reservoir so fast he kicked up waves in his wake. "I severed a main tendon in his leg on purpose, but the freak just kept running. I couldn't burn him or anything."

Fumiko shrugged, her hand still on her sister's wet forehead. Her black hair was plastered all over her face from swimming. Although the level of damage she'd received was minimal- a sprained wrist, a bunch of bruises and a concussion- Fumiko was healing them the best she could, if only because Mai would train later and she didn't want her to hurt herself.

"Lee's gotten pretty strong, though, huh?" she asked. "You two never really got the chance to practice with each other the last time he was here, since you were always working with me."

"Yeah." Mai let her eye slide shut where Fumiko's glowing palm ran over it, seeping into her skin. "I'd never say it to his face, but I'm glad he's on our side. Bastard can fight."

"Our side of what?" Fumiko dropped her hand and picked up Mai's arm, pinging a diagnostic jutsu to confirm the length of the damage. No, it really was just a sprain, their was no fracturing up her arm. She made a hand seal and gently took up her sister's hand, squeezing the joint with her fingers to coax it back into place.

Mai winced, but said nothing about the pain. "Anything. Even if Leaf and Sand weren't allied these knuckleheads would come to our rescue. Even if we went to war with each other they would help us out." She shrugged with one shoulder. "Anything comes out of this Akatsuki shit, Lee's the last one that'll turn on us."

"True," Fumiko agreed. "They're good friends to have."

And in the reservoir, Lee yelled, "If I can't do thirty more laps around the pool, then I will do one hundred pushups!"

Neji had looked over her Darning Stitch Chakra technique once again with his byakugan- and he'd asked to see it, not the other way around- commenting while she used Genjutsu that it was almost less stabilized than before, yet more under control. He also made note of the children he could see.

"More controlled, but less stable?" Fumiko chewed her lip in thought. "That doesn't make sense."

"Only when you use Genjutsu," Neji replied, byakugan fading from his features. The veins around his eyes throbbed down to nothing until there was only smooth skin left behind. "It's almost as if you release more chakra through your skin, however, you manage to control it. That explains how you were able to trick Sasori Akasuna."

"Well, yeah, I know I can control it outside my body." Fumiko laughed. "But I guess I didn't know I was using so much of it."

"Hmm," he murmured. His byakugan eyes flickered back to life almost like an after thought. "Well, it doesn't seem to necessarily negatively affect your Genjutsu, although I'd advise you be aware not to do that while you use medical ninjutsu." He paused; pursed his lips in surprise. "Oh."

"Oh what?"

"I can see..." Neji gestured to her stomach. "Them."

"Oh!" Fumiko repeated. "Oh, cool, I forgot you'd be able to do that. Hey, what can you see? I bet it's easier for you than the medics."

"Hn." Neji's eyes flickered. "Their chakra seems to be developing just fine."

"I've been so busy lately I haven't gotten a scan," Fumiko thought aloud. "But I should be somewhere in week eleven or twelve, so, so... so can you see if they're boys or girls, or not?"

Fumiko, to her almost relief, had gained another four pounds and now she was starting to stretch out her clothes a little, and her pants were kind of uncomfortable at the waistline. It wasn't super-noticeable yet, but it was noticeable enough that people could tell, to the point where a perfect stranger from another village had asked how far along she was.

Fumiko was really grateful, now, for the villager gifts of maternal clothes, and while shopping with Sakura and Ino she had gotten some bigger bras, and so she was still pretty comfy, even if a lot of the gift-shirts were in Suna-colors that made her blend into the scenery. Even her morning sickness was starting to fade from her everyday life, though she still had to pee all the time.

But it was true; she'd been moving nonstop to hang out with everyone and still do things like paint and cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner, help Gaara, bring him food, and still have time to do normal things like bathe, let alone check for her babies' genders.

Neji tilted his head slightly. "It's somewhat hard to tell," he said hesitantly. "But I do think that they are both boys."

Sai, to her delight, was a fellow artist.

He painted as well, and could sculpt and draw with all of her different kinds of tools, although strangely enough, he didn't really do anything other than black and white. Oftentimes it was abstracts as well- funny, since Fumiko specialized in effected landscapes.

Fumiko brought him to her studio, which was a little dusty and still full of her anger-fear artwork, but it was also hung up with her rehabilitated works and commissions and a few things that hadn't been damaged in the robbery so many months ago. The light still rearranged like a kaleidoscope , filtering through the air.

"Fumiko-chan, you do indeed possess fantastic skill in art." Sai ran his fingers lightly over an oil painting of a misted, snowcapped mountaintop dotted with frozen trees.

Fumiko beamed. "Thank you! I've always wanted to see snow."

"You captured it well." Sai nodded, then smiled, eyes closed, teeth meticulously hidden behind his lips. "Should I now show you mine? That seems to be appropriate in this kind of situation."

"Oh- uh, sure!" Sai said a lot of strange things, but Fumiko found most of them to be in good intentions. ... Well, occasionally he said really dirty things that made her want to blush, but even then he spoke in such a dull, somewhat lighthearted tone of voice that it led her to suspect that he didn't even realize what he was saying was usually inappropriate.

She had seen a few of his works already, hung up on the walls in his room and given as a late birthday present when he first arrived in an attempt to 'make friends, because gift giving is often the most effective way a friend can show interest and strengthen a bond.' Not that she really understood what he was talking about, but still, it'd been sweet.

Fumiko blinked when he pulled out a scroll from his thigh pouch. She'd never seen him fight before, but it kind of looked like he was using a familiarized weapon with the ease he whipped it out and knelt. Why he was taking out an empty battle scroll in the middle of her closed art studio, Fumiko didn't know- at least not until he pulled an ink-dipped brush from nowhere and started to scribble across it, faster than Fumiko had ever managed to successfully doodle.

Before she could ask what kind of ink he was using, the tiger he'd drawn leapt to life silently, ink swirling like throbbing muscles. It's mouth stretched open in a soundless roar, and it crouched, tail flickering like it would pounce. It was almost the size of a person- like Mai if she stood on all fours.

"Whoah!" Fumiko yelped, pointing and loosely grasping the edge of her hair. "You just- and it just- and I-"

"My artwork comes to life and can be used as a jutsu," Sai explained. "I use ink infused with my blood to use Super Beast Imitation."

"That is..." Fumiko reached out to touch the creature, which didn't move. Ink smeared off on her fingers, but it was strangely warm, almost pulsing as the creature-drawing breathed. Which was odd, since it wasn't entirely solid... "so cool!"

Hinata, to Fumiko's surprise- although in the long run, it made a lot of sense- loved to press flowers into books similar to scrapbooks. There was one in her bag that added to with flowers she found throughout the day, which was impressive considering they were in Suna.

The few she found were cactus flowers Fumiko pointed out when herself, Neji, Tenten, and Gaara went out for a walk outside the walls. Originally it was supposed to be just her and Gaara, since he was getting super stressed out trying to be politically correct and not start a war, and the others joined them on their way. Once Fumiko realized she was picking pretty flowers, she'd gone to Shiragiku and surprised Hinata.

Fumiko knocked lightly on the door next to Shikamaru's room.

There was a timid, "Come in."

Fumiko did and noticed immediately that the room was literally no different than before Hinata had arrived, aside for a single travel bag in the corner, and the press book on the bed. All of the others had changed theirs in some way- even slight ways, like how Shikamaru's bed was never made and the curtains always pulled to see the sky.

Uzumaki Naruto had thrown clothes and instant ramen packets on the bed and the nightstand and the floor. It looked much more... orange, and coupled with the kunai and training scrolls unraveled across the furniture, you could really tell it was his room.

Ino's room had a few medical textbooks and five or six bags that spilled purple fabric and hairbrushes and moisturizer. She also had put up her own purple-and-white trim curtains over the small windows.

Chouji's floor and bed would be littered with potato chip bags and crumbs, but the maids cleaned at least his room daily, since he spent most of his time either in the kitchen or with Shikamaru and Ino, anyway. Instead, you could tell by the extra duffel mainly for chip bags and, if you looked closer, sealing scrolls. That was another thing Fumiko hadn't been expecting, but thinking back, there was really no other way for him to carry so much food on his person on a regular basis.

Sakura's room was filled to the brim with medical texts and scrolls, as well as a few chakra practice seals and mostly empty anmitsu bowls on the desk. There was a book of trivia games on her pillow that she penciled into whenever she hung out in her room with other people, and because of that Fumiko had learned some pretty weird things.

Lee's room was actually pristine, with only a few taijutsu weapons and a bunch of notebooks filled with advice on being a ninja courtesy of Gai. Fumiko actually found a few of those helpful. When questioned, he'd burst into a passionate speech about how cleanliness was the virtue of an excellent and responsible ninja! He could clean Uzumaki Naruto's room in under four minutes, which was pretty incredible to watch.

Sai's was plastered with black and white abstracts, with a neat pile of brushes and three large bottles of black ink on the desk, but otherwise perfectly neat and tidy to the point that Fumiko was pretty sure that Black Ops wouldn't be able to find fingerprints on his own belongings.

Neji and Tenten's rooms were beside each other and actually really similar. Both had dark colored green sleeping bags zipped up on their coverless beds, like they were wary of Sunagakure's fluffy warm blankets designed to keep out the desert chill. Fumiko didn't know exactly how they kept warm at night, but they never complained. The only difference was the storage seals and stray kusarigama in Tenten's room, and the bottle of Hyuga wound ointment on Neji's nightstand.

But Hinata's was unchanged, like she didn't sleep in here.

"Hi, Hinata! What are you doing?"

"Fumiko-chan?" Hinata looked startled for a moment before quickly standing from where she'd been sitting on the floor next to the bed. "N-nothing. Just... thinking. Was there something you needed? Neji is in the other room..."

"No, no, Hinata, I brought you a present!" Fumiko exclaimed, lifting the bag full of flower heads. A lot of them were for medical purposes, but Shiragiku had promised that they were either never used or were in excess anyway. Well, it wasn't really full, but there were at least ten different brightly colored flowers. "I got you desert-flowers from the greenhouses."

"Flowers?" Hinata hesitated. "What for, Fumiko-chan?"

"Just call me Fumiko, Hinata," she said, then handed her the bag, the straps of which Hinata took gingerly. "I saw you collecting flower heads. You press them, right? In there." Fumiko nodded to the bed with the book on it. "I saw you, once."

"Oh." Hinata smiled slightly. "Well, thank you... Fumiko."

Aside from occasional board games and all three meals a day, Fumiko didn't actually see a whole lot of Uzumaki Naruto. The energetic ninja spent most of his time with Gaara, either trying to help him in the office (messes which inevitably she had to fix all three times, since Gaara couldn't remember where things had been) or just talking to him while he worked.

Sometimes the blond went out to train with Mai and Kankuro and Temari in the training fields. Temari helped him out with Wind Release, showing him through the use of her giant folding fan, while Mai worked with him on taijutsu and bukijutsu. Kankuro was more of a sparring partner than anything else, since in his opinion he didn't want Uzumaki Naruto anywhere near poisons.

Either way, it was two of the busiest weeks of her life. But was also the most real, non-just-content fun Fumiko had had since the fight with Akatsuki. Even if she had to pee half the time.

...

~ "What?" ~

...

"Don't you ever sleep?" Tenten muttered, then sleepily surveyed the Shogi board donated for the night- and apparently, forever, because that was Shikamaru's late birthday present for her, a beautiful sleek wooden board and carved, smooth black stone and white deer antler horn pieces. "I'm all for friendly competition, but..."

"Not really." Fumiko waited for Tenten to move her piece, then slid a pawn forward. "I mean, I do, but I don't really get tired anymore."

As soon as she'd gotten the present (Shikamaru said he would have waited to give her the grocery bag wrapped gift later, but that he was bored with Sorry and Chutes and Ladders) all of them, even Mai- who decided to stay the night- started a Shogi tournament. At first, Tenten and Lee had been the most excited about the challenge, even drawing up a bracketed set of matches deathmatch-style.

This had started almost two hours ago. At this point, they'd gotten all the way through seven Shogi games:

Uzumaki Naruto vs Sai- Sai.

Ino vs Sakura- Sakura.

Neji vs Temari- surprisingly, and at the last few moments of the game- Temari.

Shikamaru vs Lee- Shikamaru.

Choji vs Hinata- Hinata, who was actually pretty sharp; quick with strategy.

Herself vs Kankuro- herself.

Tenten vs Mai- Tenten. Much to Mai's frustration.

Sakura had fallen asleep, so she couldn't face of against Sai yet. Uzumaki Naruto insisted that it was better to wait as long as possible before waking her up, so they had started at the end again, and now she was facing Tenten.

It wasn't even that late- just eleven thirty, but it had also been a really full day. Fumiko guessed that most people would be tired after hours of desert-walking, market-walking, occasional sparring, talking-to-slash-fending-off various reporters and regular citizens, and find-the-nearest-bathroom (which wasn't really a game, but Lee had seemed to enjoy the challenge.)

But Fumiko wasn't lying. She'd noticed she almost never actually got tired anymore unless she ran completely out of chakra or was really really hungry or, occasionally, right after she woke up.

Tenten frowned, then moved a piece forward, looking mildly satisfied. Fumiko didn't even need to think about her next move, antler-horn sliver clacking against the board in seconds. She was actually six steps ahead of Tenten's reasoning, not that the fuinjutsu master realized she was playing into a trap. "So when do you sleep?"

"Whenever Gaara gets of work." Tenten appeared to switch strategies, staring at the board intently- as intently as she could exhausted- and after a few minutes moved a piece out of the line of Fumiko's plans. Fumiko bit her lip thoughtfully, eyes flickering over the board. Fumiko chased her, noting the positions of her own bishop and gold general at the far end of the board.

Shogi was not a game of speed, she'd realized- it was a game of strategy. There was no timer. If you wanted, you could stare at the board and come up with plans for an hour before moving. Not that she needed to do that right now, but the point was that she could.

Ooh. She needed to get Gaara to play it with her someday, with her new board.

"Seriously?" Uzumaki Naruto asked in disbelief. Aside from everyone else still in the tournament- minus Sakura- Kankuro, Mai, Neji and Uzumaki Naruto were the only ones either not asleep or off doing something private in their respective rooms. "How long does that take?" He grinned a little sheepishly. "I, uh, don't stay in his office after lunch. It's so boring..."

Fumiko shrugged as Tenten struggled with her next move, sliding it from square to square without taking her fingers off it, brows furrowed into a contemplative frown. "Dunno. Depends. Sometimes he's finished by dinner, sometimes he doesn't get home till three."

"AM?" Shikamaru asked, then groaned. "What a drag. Don't you get bored, waiting that long?"

"Not really." Tenten moved, Fumiko thought for a second before taking her Lance. Tenten muttered something that Fumiko did, in fact, pick up. "I don't really need to do anything. If I do get bored, I help Gaara with whatever he's doing."

"I don't know how you live like that," Tenten said at last, sighing. "You win, don't you?"

"Not yet." Fumiko moved a piece to the side. "Two moves. And what do you mean?"

"Damn. You know, cooped up all the time?" Tenten tried to avoid Fumiko's obvious trap, falling unknowingly into another. Fumiko didn't know the name of this particular strategy, but it was one she'd seen Shikamaru use quite a few times. "You almost never leave this tower, and when you do there are people everywhere, pestering you with questions."

"It's not so bad." Fumiko checked her king. "Check. But I mean, I have fun all the time. There are lots of people here to talk to, and anyway I do art a lot."

Sai nodded. "You use a lot of details in your work," he said agreeably.

"You know, I thought I was good at this," Tenten said, sighing again. "I see it. If I move left, you check me into a corner. If I move right, you check me against your rook. It'll be checkmate. I give." She shrugged. "And I guess you're easier to please than most."

"I guess so." Fumiko grinned and stretched her arms above her head, craning her back until both shoulders popped, then rolled away from the mat. Kankuro, who was watching the tournament scoreboard, filled in her name for the next round of games. "That's what Gaara says, anyway."

The next set of matches passed fairly quickly- and by fairly quickly, she meant another three hours (they eventually ended up waking Sakura for hers, which she promptly lost.) Shikamaru beat Temari, Sai Sakura, and eventually, Fumiko beat Hinata, not with any strategy but simply because she lasted longer. That match took almost two hours on it's own.

The only matchup left before the end was Sai and Shikamaru.

The two of them faced off, Sai with his poker face smile, Shikamaru with his trademark droopy eyes. Each turn lasted long enough to drive off Mai, Tenten, Hinata, and even Neji, all of which excused themselves to sleep. Mai prodded Kankuro, who had fallen asleep with his face on the score sheet, with her foot, and when he didn't wake up shrugged and left.

Eventually even Fumiko was starting to zone out, mind going a few different places at once, thinking that maybe black and white wasn't such a bad idea for a painting. Or maybe calligraphy ink, like Sai used? And Shogi was really very interesting and could be used to make unrealistic landscape... also, she needed to repaint Gaara's kanji.

Sai eventually lost. "Good game," he said, still smiling. "You are very good at this, Shikamaru-kun."

He and Fumiko switched places on the mat. Shikamaru yawned. "Kami, what a drag," he muttered. "It's almost four in the morning and I'm playing Shogi."

"We haven't played in a while, Shikamaru," she said happily, resetting the board. As she did, Sai waved goodbye and left the rec room. Fumiko made the first move mainly because Shikamaru couldn't be bothered to, but looked up when Sai paused in his footsteps. She relaxed again, smiling, when she recognized Gaara's dark red-blue chakra.

"Hello, Gaara-sama," Sai greeted politely, then left before Gaara could reply.

"Fumiko?" Soft, slow footsteps as Gaara made his way to her side, then leaned over where she was crouching to see the Shogi board. "Why are you playing Shogi at four AM? And why is Kankuro asleep on the floor?"

"Good question," Shikamaru moaned.

"Kankuro fell asleep keeping score." Fumiko looked up and grinned. "He fell asleep before everyone on the couch left."

"I see." Gaara touched a hand to her head for a split second before moving to sit on the couch a few feet away. "And everyone else?"

"Sleeping, I think."

Shikamaru moved a pawn. Fumiko scanned over the board and moved a pawn on the other side of the game.

Shikamaru moved again. Fumiko complimented his strategy and moved another piece.

Eventually Gaara shrugged and stood, one big sweeping pile of robes. He adjusted his hat. Fumiko looked up from the game, blinking. There wasn't a clock, she was just guessing at the times. Gaara smiled at her questioning expression.

"I'm going to make sure we still have peaches so you don't wake up without again," he said. Fumiko giggled, biting at her lower lip, because she really didn't remember any of the tears Gaara had been so anxious about the next day. "And I need to change out of these clothes. Then, I'll come back."

"Oh, okay." Fumiko patted at his leg. "Love you."

"You too."

After he left, Fumiko looked back to the game only to realize that Shikamaru was studying her quietly.

"What?"

"Nothing." Shikamaru sort of shook his head, a slight, almost aborted movement. "Just some memories."

"How've you been, by the way? I've been meaning to ask." Fumiko slipped her pawn forward. "I heard about your fight with the Akatsuki." She paused. "And, you know, I'm really sorry about your sensei. But thanks."

Shikamaru's mouth had opened at 'sorry' like he would protest, but at the last bit he paused. "What?" he asked finally, averting his eyes. He moved a piece. Fumiko recognized the strategy instantly- Rising Silver. "What are you talking about; thanks for what?"

"For helping with those Akatsuki." Fumiko bit her lip and tried to counter. She wouldn't know if she'd succeeded for another four turns. "That's two more down. Just. I'm glad. That we don't have to worry about Hidan or Kakuzu anymore."

Shikamaru heaved a big breath and moved. Somehow, he didn't seem to notice her countermeasures against his Rising Silver, just kept on pushing it forward towards her King. "Those Akatsuki really bother you, huh?"

"Sometimes." Fumiko took her turn. "They just give me a bad feeling, is all."

Shikamaru looked at the board instead of her eyes. "Yeah. Me too. I don't like them at all. But I guess it's different for you."

She didn't deny it. "Maybe."

They were silent for another handful of minutes or maybe an hour, it was hard to tell. Although, Fumiko knew it couldn't have been any longer than half an hour since Gaara hadn't returned yet. They just played Shogi. Fumiko broke down his Rising Silver, although Shikamaru wasn't playing at the top of his game, and the only 'top of his game' she knew had been almost two years ago, and no doubt he was better now.

Surprisingly, Shikamaru broke the silence. "You know, I thought you were going to try and comfort me, or something."

"Nah." Fumiko picked up a piece. "You seem mostly okay."

"Mostly." he repeated dryly.

She put her piece down. "Hey, I was worse. I threw crumpled paper balls at the advisers. Or plates, if they tried to make me eat. Sleeping a little more really isn't all that bad, in comparison."

"You mean, when Gaara...?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

Shikamaru stared at the game board, but his eyes seemed unfocused, like he wasn't actually trying to play anymore. "I almost went with them, you know. On the mission to save him. I heard about it before Team Guy was deployed."

"Why didn't you?"

Shikamaru sighed, a long, heavy sound. "I don't know. Partially because I'd just been released from my escort mission." His eyebrows scrunched together. "But also because I didn't want to get involved, I guess. I figured Naruto would be able to handle it."

Fumiko nodded. "Me too."

"I'm..." Shikamaru snorted out another sigh. ".. sorry about that. That Gaara died."

"Yeah. But he came back to life, so it's okay."

"Tch. I doubt that. You're different than you were. It's such a drag... you're better at Shogi. More focused. Less diffident. I guess it might just be your hormones, though." He huffed a laugh. "What a drag."

Fumiko agreed.

Fifty seven moves later, they drew a draw. Sometime during that time Gaara returned, and after marking the tie on the edge of the paper under Kankuro's face, the three of them all went to bed, entirely Shogi'd out.

...

~ Fumiko pointed out the window. Granted, it was very nearly completely covered by blowing sand, but if you squinted, there was something outside. ~

...

The next day, Kankuro was mad that they'd left him there and that there was the indent of a pencil in his face, but Mai shut him down pretty quick before leaving. Fumiko didn't know that, because she was still sleeping.

And it was adorable.

Ino resisted the urge to go aww, because she was pretty sure Gaara would kill her thinking she was an intruder or simply because he was Gaara and Ino had caught them both sleeping. Together. It had to be one of the cutest, sweetest things she had ever seen.

Fumiko was mostly curled into Gaara's chest, face tucked into his neck, but her right arm and leg were flung out in the opposite direction, fingers nearly dangling over the edge of the sheets, but her arm wasn't long enough. Gaara had his arms around her, one running underneath her neck to her back and the other slung over her stomach. Both were fast asleep. The covers had been pushed down to their waists, where Fumiko's pyjama top had ridden up to her chest.

Both of their faces were flushed with sleep. Ino was so quiet she could hear them breathing, and she could see it too, in the gentle rise and fall of Gaara's pale arm.

She no longer regretted being named messenger for Choji and Kankuro and everyone else who wanted breakfast. Sure, now she couldn't possibly wake them up, but still... they looked like something out of a movie. That sweet morning after, or something, and she was half expecting one of them to wake up and say 'i love you' or 'you're so beautiful'.

Stop it, she chided herself. You're a ninja, stop acting like a teenage girl.

But she was a teenage girl.

And it was adorable.

Eventually, Ino made her way back to the door, not daring to close it all the way, before knocking.

Instantly something stirred. "Who is it?"

Gaara's voice. Ino smiled, then shifted her voice into neutral. "Hey, Gaara. Choji and the others wanted to know if Fumiko could come down and make breakfast. It's almost seven. Are you guys still sleeping?"

"She is." A brief pause. He was probably yawning. "You can try to wake her up, but... she wakes up on her own time."

"Huh. I think Shikamaru told me about that." Ino paused as she realized something. "Wait, shouldn't you be at work, or something?"

Quiet footsteps slunk slowly to the door. Ino backed up before it opened to reveal Gaara, cheeks still faintly flushed, in a loose black t-shirt and black drawstring pants. He blinked slowly, and it was strange because when his eyes closed they completely blacked out, then opened again to reveal almost turquoise.

"I don't leave until Fumiko wakes up," he said, probably oblivious to how sweet that was. "So we can say goodbye until the evening."

"Why?"

His eyes hardened, then softened just as quickly. "The last time I didn't say goodbye, I died."

Oh.

"Oh," Ino echoed. "Well... how's it going?"

"How's what going?"

"Your thing with Fumiko."

Gaara blushed, which Ino totally hadn't been expecting, looking away and sliding his fingers away from the doorknob to grip the edge of the door instead, but he raised his brow like he would be amused if he wasn't so embarrassed. "She's pregnant."

Ino snorted. "What's that have to do with it?" Gaara went silent, blinking at her again. "You know, you should blush more often. It's cute, brings out that Ai on your forehead."

...

~ Gaara glanced out the one-story window of her family's apartment house, studying the swirling sand with a furrowed brow. He'd been having a stayover the night before when the sandstorm kicked in. ~

...

"Shiiikamaaruuu," Fumiko called as she wandered through the guest halls. He wasn't in his room or Choji's room and Ino's room was empty. "Shiiikamaaruu, I wanna play Shogi!"

"He's outside," Tenten said, poking er head out of her bedroom. "Left a few minutes ago to 'get a breath of air' as he put it. Breath of sand, more like it," she added, muttering like Fumiko wasn't supposed to hear that part, as she ducked back into her door and closed it.

"Oh. Thanks!"

Making her patient way down the steps, Fumiko made her way all the way down to ground level. She excused herself through the bustle of people, then circled the building around to the back where she knew Shikamaru sometimes went when he went 'outside'. She'd seen him once from her window.

As she did, she noticed a weird scent in the air that made her nose crinkle. This was a few seconds before she actually saw him, leaning up against the wall with his back, hands up to his face.

Smoking.

"You smoke?" she blurted, and he flinched sightly. He looked at her with wide eyes for a second before letting his face blank out again.

"Yeah," he said coolly.

"... Oh." She searched her brain. "Asuma smoked, didn't he?"

"... Yeah."

"Oh."

"Did you need something?" He took another drag off the cigarette, and looked away from her direction when he puffed out a long stream of grey smoke to keep it out of her face. That had been the acrid smell she'd picked up on.

"Oh! Uh..." Fumiko hesitated a moment, trying to remember why she'd come out in the first place. "Oh, right! I wanted to know if you wanted to play Shogi."

"In a minute." He flicked his cigarette. "I'll meet you up there."

"... Okay."

...

~ He frowned. "What is that?" ~

...

Pretty soon, someone brought it up, and to her surprise, it was Neji.

"Fumiko, we've been here for two and a half weeks," he said levelly over a breakfast of loaded omelets and grilled mackerel. "Some or all of us are going to start getting called back soon. When do you plan on holding your party?"

"Oh! The shower!" Fumiko paused, humming, as she brought the last pan over to the table to Choji's. "Well... are you all, ready and stuff?"

"Yeah," they chorused.

"We've been ready since before we left," Tenten said, indicating to herself, Choji and Lee."

"Yeah, we all have our stuff wrapped and everything..."

"Just waiting for the go-ahead."

"I wanted to throw a surprise shower, but nooo."

"No."

Fumiko laughed, then grinned. "Well, I wanna make food and stuff, and I had other plans for today, so how about in two days?"

"You're going to try and book a large building for official Kazekage family parties in two days?" That was Sai. "That seems kind of... rushed, and unlikely to succeed."

She shrugged. "They never use it anyway, but I changed my mind. I'm gonna do it in the rec room!"

"That living room we played Shogi in?" Sakura asked. "I guess that would make sense... less press showing up uninvited. Is anyone else going to be there, besides us?"

"Yeah." Fumiko smiled again and sat down. "Some of my hospital friends, some of Mai's friends. Shouldn't be too many..."

"Well, good!" Lee exclaimed. "In two days it is, then!"

...

~ "Dunno." Fumiko shrugged. "You see better than me." ~

...

Making chocolate from scratch was easy enough, but rolling it into a hollow pipe before it dried and filling it with sugar, however, was not.

Hard though it was, Fumiko kept to the challenge all day, getting chocolate on her shirt and her face and her arms, baking and carving and molding and filling. She mixed up some white fondue and wrapped the tubes as thinly as she possibly could, chinking lines into the ends with a butter knife.

When she finally finished, she had twenty, and she'd been in the kitchen for a good part of the day, hiding finished products from the people who trickled in for lunch and making spaghetti.

...

~ Whatever it was was a dark, blurry shape in the sand, maybe the size of a food can, and it blew about with the wind, knocking up against the side of the house. It was hard to make anything out in the storm. ~

...

"Shikamaru, can I borrow your cigarettes?"

"... What?"

"Can I borrow your cigarettes?" she repeated.

He gave her an uncertain look, almost like he was guilty. He brought a hand up to his neck, frowning. "Look, Fumiko, I don't think-"

"No, no," she said, and laughed. "I'm not gonna smoke them, I just need to borrow the box."

"The... box."

"Yeah."

Shikamaru sighed. "Sure, I guess." He pulled out the box, tapped out a few to stick in a vial pouch of his chuunin vest, then handed her the box, still partially full. "Uh, give this back, alright?"

"Yeah!"

...

~ "I think it's an animal," Gaara said at last. Fumiko twisted to look at him, eyes wide. ~

...

Fumiko waited until Shikamaru left to 'get some air' and then stealthily (as stealthily as she could, anyway) followed him.

Shikamaru, to his credit, waited until they were around the building in his usual spot to ask, "Fumiko, why are you following me?"

Fumiko, unfazed, grinned and pulled the closed cigarette box that smelled a lot less like smoke now that she'd washed it out with a wet cloth before using it out of an extra pocket in her medical pouch and held it out. Shikamaru gave her a flat stare before taking it back.

"Thanks. I think."

His fingers went up to his vest.

"No, no, no, take one from the box!" she yelped.

That earned her another dry, slightly confused look, but he opened the box, tapped one out, and frowned. "Wait, why is this full? It was, like, half empty befo-... why are these candy?"

She laughed. "Try one! Bite it."

It looked more like he was trying to humor her than anything else, because he raised an eyebrow, sighed, and said "What a drag," before putting one to his lips and biting into the part that looked like the end of a cigarette. It looked like he was going to take another bite and just eat the entire thing, and Fumiko realized he hadn't noticed the other part.

"Wait, wait! Breathe it in. Well, uh, not into your lungs, just your mouth."

He breathed.

Then blinked in surprise, pulling it out of his mouth. An almost glittery puff of sugar fell out of the end of it to flicker to the ground. "What the..."

"Chocolate cigarettes!" Fumiko announced proudly, throwing her hands up into the air when he shot her a disbelieving look. "I made them myself! It was super hard to get the sugar in, though. I made them for you!"

There was a moment of silence. Fumiko smiled at him expectantly.

And then he started to laugh. Like really, really laugh, harder than Fumiko had ever seen Shikamaru laugh.

He nearly doubled over, and Fumiko learned that his laughter was as infectious as hers and joined in, and pretty soon they were both just bubbly puddles of it, Shikamaru gripping his stomach and leaning up against the wall, throwing the rest of the cigarette into his mouth, and Fumiko just sliding down the wall to the sand, and they laughed.

...

~ "Really? An animal? How can you tell?" ~

...

The baby shower was festive, with confetti and balloons and party games that were baby related and also Sakura's idea, like 'Who knows mommy best' (which Gaara won, to nobody's surprise) baby charades (Lee) baby food flavor guessing (Choji) and homemade play-doh masterpiece creation (Unanimous tie between Sai and Fumiko.)

Games of 'What is it?' were won by multiple people, mainly by Ame, which was fun. They even played hide and seek, but although Fumiko found good hiding spots, she regularly had to go to the bathroom and got caught in the act three times. They had normal matches of board games, nothing as long as Shogi.

Eventually Sai blatantly asked when they were supposed to give her presents, and everyone else laughed, and Fumiko suddenly found herself sitting on the couch, knee-deep in wrapped gifts next to Gaara, with Uzumaki Naruto and Lee on either side of them. Everyone else either stood or knelt or sat on the floor in front of them.

"Why are there so many?" she exclaimed when everyone brought their presents back from various hiding places or sealing scrolls.

"Because we missed your birthday, duh!" Uzumaki Naruto laughed.

"Oh, right! My birthday, I totally forgot." She grinned. "You guys didn't have to-"

"Open the presents! Mine first!" Lee yelled.

From Lee, Fumiko got a pair of dumbbells and training weights, for her shower and her birthday, respectively. At everyone's curious looks, he explained (Read: exclaimed) that the dumbbells were to help Fumiko in her future of being a housewife and caring for children, while the weights were to help with her taijutsu, and that was why it was important that the presents were for different events.

Sakura got her a book on baby development and infant care for the shower, and a new set of paints for her birthday. They were wrapped neatly in pink tissue paper, with a store bought card covered in paper balloons. Uzumaki Naruto gave her a ramen coupon for her birthday that wouldn't expire until she used it so she could use it when she visited Konoha next, and for her shower, a nursing bra that "Jiraiya-taicho says you'll probably really need."

Fumiko was surprised. Gaara put a hand to his face. Sakura hit Uzumaki Naruto, who whined until Fumiko thanked him, then sulked on the couch while Sai gave her his gift of a set of blue baby clothes.

Tenten got her a 'body pillow' a big C shaped thing that Sakura exclaimed was a wonderful idea and explained that she would really, really need it in her second and third trimester. The pillow was a light pretty red color. Fumiko loved it instantly. Tenten also gave her a book on Seal and Tag tactics unrelated to Object Sealing. The fuinjutsu master winked.

Neji calmly handed her a neatly wrapped box the size of her entire torso that, when opened, revealed blankets of different colors and designs, and when she dug further found stuffed animals like bears and lions and dogs with big floppy velvet ears. Fumiko petted them and thanked him warmly, to which he looked away. He had no second gift, so Fumiko didn't ask.

Hinata had knitted a blue diaper bag the size of her medical pouch, glitter-weaved with Suna-tan yellow outlines of Kanji like 'Love' and 'Friendship' and 'New' and 'Baby' and 'Life' and many many others. For no apparent reason Fumiko almost started to cry.

"This is beautiful, Hinata!" she sniffed. "Did you make this?"

Hinata blushed slightly and nodded, gasping lightly when Fumiko threw herself forward to hug the pale-eyed girl.

"I'll use it every day, promise!"

Gaara pulled her back onto the couch, helped her dry her eyes, and then handed her Hinata's other gift, a tri-folding silver picture frame. The center one was the biggest, for a family photo or shot of the two of them, Hinata shyly explained, and the two on the ends were halved so that you could put a picture on the top and bottom of each one. For the kids, Hinata said.

Shikamaru gave her another grocery bag with things like pacifiers and rattles in them. He'd already given Fumiko the Shogi board he'd had made for her birthday, which was in her and Gaara's room now, on her vanity dresser. From Choji she got cute baby booties and a two person meal coupon for herself and Gaara at the fancy restaurant where they'd had their first real 'date.'

Ino's baby shower gift was by far the funniest. She got two shirts, inverted blue and red opposite versions of each other. Both read in block leaders mixed with fancy script: Daddy's lil monster. Gaara quirked his brow, but was eventually forced to smile by Fumiko's and everyone else's hysterical laughter, even chuckling along with them. For her birthday, she got her a nail kit.

"Because you used to always paint your nails with acrylic paint," she explained with a shrug.

"Ohh, yeah!"

Kankuro and Temari both gave her a birthday card each and a combined present of an empty picture album pasted all over with rattles and drawn-on diapers for her to fill with pictures and notes herself. Mai got her more teething rubber kunai and a 64 pack of wax crayons, followed up by a gift basket and birthday card from Eishi and a handwritten all-organic baby food recipe book and small canvases from Shiragiku.

Her hospital friends all gave her much of the same things: baby toys and maternity clothes and tip books, bottles and diaper bags and gift cards.

When they all finished, Fumiko grinned, clapped her hands once, and said, "I have an announcement to make!"

Mai's eyes were instantly and the first ones on her. Out of the four she'd mentioned to that she had a surprise for, her sister appeared to be the only one who remembered, as Temari sort of half-disengaged from a conversation with Shikamaru, Neji looked away from brushing wrapping away from his lap, and Lee just frantically shushed everyone in the loudest way possible.

"So, me and Gaara when we got Lee's letter were talking."

Gaara, who didn't really like all the attention he was getting, made only a small affirmative noise, otherwise she was sure he would've commented that she did most of the talking and he didn't really care or mind either way.

"Talking?" Neji tilted his head. "About what?"

"Well, actually- Mai, Temari, Neji, Lee, I wanted to ask you a question." Fumiko leaned forward in her seat on the couch, putting her elbows on her knees.

Mai grinned.

"Question?" Temari raised one eyebrow. "What question?"

"I wanted to know if you all wanted to be godmothers and godfathers."

They reacted pretty much exactly how she and Gaara had predicted they would, with Temari smirking in a way that almost a grin, Mai fistpumping and yelling "Hell, yes!" Neji blinked in surprise, not saying a word in his shock, and Lee was the loudest of them all, taking down streamers with how high he jumped. Ame and her other old coworkers jumped when he started yelling, "I will be a splendid Godfather, and always be a protector of their Youth!"

When Lee started to cry was about the time that a lot of the non-Leaf ninja started to filter out, Eishi and Shiragiku excusing themselves, Ame and Tsuchi and the others getting up and hurrying out with echoing wishes of good luck.

Eventually the party wound down as the food Fumiko had made began to disappear, although Lee was still going strong and spontaneously hugging both her and Gaara unexpectedly throughout the afternoon- until he got used to it Gaara accidentally sent him flying into a wall twice. She pulled out a peach cobbler towards the end for whoever was still there to munch on and chat over as Lee and Mai started to take down the festivities.

All of the new baby stuff Gaara helped her to bring over to the room she planned to make the nursery. Gaara was strangely quiet the short walk from the rec room to the baby stuff-filled bedroom. He opened the door for her since it was latched and she couldn't push it open.

Fumiko dropped everything. Literally, she dropped them all over the floor; two books, Neji's bag of blankets and stuffed animals and an armful of blue clothes. They pooled around her toes and her prosthetic.

Behind her, unseen, was Gaara's tiny smile.

"Oh my sugar, it's beautiful."

'It' was a pure black wooden baby crib, a little larger than most, with curved edges that made it look bigger, and a dipping crib wall top. It was standing up along the back wall, away from the bins and boxes of things in the center of the room. It took a second for her to realize that Gaara had probably gotten it, and even thought it was his as much as it was for hers, she smiled.

...

~ "Because it's barely moving around," he observed, like it was obvious. "If it wasn't alive, it would be blowing all over the place, like the broken stuff does. It must be holding it's ground, somehow." ~

...

Fumiko was in the kitchen when Neji came in and asked, "Can we go for a walk?"

She blinked, but grinned, running her soapy hands under water in the sink. "Sure!" she said brightly. "Just let me finish washing my hands... Where's Lee?"

"No," Neji said. "Alone."

"Uh- okay." Fumiko laughed. "Sorry, I'm just used to Lee tagging along."

"I understand completely," he said dryly, and it almost sounded like a deadpan joke despite his monotone voice.

Neji, she had concluded, was a lot like Gaara in the more subtle aspects of his personality- not necessarily quiet, but preferring to say more through his actions and expressions than words, even then closing off body language to remain virtually emotionless- unless one knew him well. He was also similar in his crude language- not particularly concerned with offending anyone yet not trying to, merely stating his thoughts exactly as he thought them.

But there were ways he and Gaara were very different. Neji was more inclined to protocol than Gaara was, and he was more of a traditional ninja, in a sense. Gaara was more adept at hearing the changes in a voice, whereas Neji- probably due to his Byakugan- was fairly oblivious to all but body language.

Neji was colder, and Gaara was darker. Sometimes even their differences seemed like near similarities. Their happiness was different as well- calm and satisfied versus peaceful and content.

Fumiko shut the water off probably a few seconds before it would've shut itself off, then dried her hands on a dish towel, turning. "So did you want to see something?"

His expression hardly changed when he smiled back. "No, I just wanted to go for a walk."

"Ohhh." She thought for a second, dropping the dish towel on the counter behind her. "Then, we should walk outside the walls, so we don't get swarmed."

"Yes. Those people are very..." His eyes twitched slightly. "Determined."

Fumiko laughed and followed him out of the room, prosthetic clacking against the floor. "It's not that bad. I mean it's not like they go past the first floor unless they have an interview or something."

They made their way down the stairs, chatting idly about anything from the constellations to who had really won the Shogi tournament. When they finally hit the first floor, Fumiko waved off the few ninja that wanted to escort her- there was still a lot of worry about potential assassination- and pointed over to Neji.

"Fumiko-sama," someone said immediately as soon as they cleared the small mass of people filing into the doors, and Neji tensed. It was almost funny when he looked around for the source, confused, but didn't actually think to look down.

"Kenzo!" Fumiko grinned and knelt. "What's up?"

The little tanned blond boy smiled. He was bigger than he had been during the sandstorm incident at her Gallery; and for good reason, he was at least a year or so older. He was missing one of his front teeth. "Hi, Fumiko-san!"

"Who is this?"

"Ahh, Neji, this is Kenzo." Fumiko laughed at his bland look. "We got stuck together in my Gallery during a sandstorm last year. Time flies, huh? Kenzo, this is my friend Neji. He's a ninja from Konoha."

"I'll be a ninja too!" Kenzo boasted. "Hey, you have really white eyes. Are you blind? How are you a ninja if you're blind?"

"I'm not blind." He studied Kenzo calmly. The boy couldn't be any older than seven or so, so Fumiko didn't really know what he was looking for. "Do you go to the Academy here?"

"Yep!" Kenzo grinned as Fumiko straightened. "Hey, are you the Kazekage's friend, too?"

When Neji hesitated, Fumiko nodded. "Yeah, he is."

"Kenzo?" someone called frantically over the throng of people around them. Fumiko blinked. "Kenzo? Kenzo, where are you?"

"Over here, ma'am," Neji called.

After a few seconds, a woman with a dirty blond ponytail draping down past her shoulder blades, bangs tied back with a cloth headband. She was an average height for an adult, probably in her late twenties or early thirties.

She spotted them and rushed over before kneeling and squishing Kenzo's face into her chest. "Kenzo! Never ever run away from me like that again, you scared me half to death!"

"But mooom," Kenzo whined in a muffled voice. "I saw Fumiko-san!"

The woman, who Fumiko recognized as Kenzo's mother, blinked and looked up, seeming to finally realize they were there. Then she blushed and immediately straightened, taking Kenzo's hand and bowing. "Fumiko-sama! I'm so sorry, I-"

"It's okay," Fumiko said with a grin. "Uh, Atsuko, right?"

"Um- yes." Atsuko said nervously. "I really do apologize if he bothered you, though, my Lady. Kenzo can be a bit of a handful sometimes."

"Mom!" Kenzo protested.

"It's really fine, I was just heading out for a walk with Neji. No big deal." Fumiko shrugged.

"Neji-san?" Atsuko said, astonished, head whipping finally to see her friend. Neji blinked and took a slight step back when the woman pointed. "Neji Hyuga from Konoha?"

"Yes," he said warily. Atsuko blushed again.

"Sorry! It's just..." She hesitated. "You were one of the Konoha ninja that took part in the Kazekage's rescue a few months ago, right? From that nasty group Akatsuki?"

"Yeah," Fumiko answered when Neji shot her an uncertain glance. "He was there with Team Guy and the others. They protected Team Kakashi while Uzumaki Naruto rescued-"

"Oh! I've heard about you, Neji-san," she said hurriedly, then bowed. "Thank you so much for helping our Lord Kazekage! Please, pass my thanks on to the others as well, if it isn't too much trouble. Come, Kenzo, let's leave them alone now."

Kenzo yelled goodbye as his mother dragged him back into the crowds. Fumiko laughed at Neji's stunned-mullet face and grabbed his hand. "Come on, before someone else sees us," she said and pulled him away from the Tower plaza.

...

~ "Ohmysugar! We need to save it!" Fumiko exclaimed. ~

...

That had been strange. Neji, personally, hadn't thought that the villagers of Sunagakure would really recognize anyone from the party of ninja that had helped to rescue Gaara from the Akatsuki, aside from perhaps Naruto, who everyone seemed to remember.

Beside him, Fumiko hummed loudly to herself and kicked up tiny eddies of sand as they walked. She had led him out the still new-looking village gates, and now they were walking probably twenty minutes out from the wall. Neji could still see it, sort of, shimmery like a mirage.

Fumiko looked entirely comfortable in the scorching hot desert, barely sweating despite the- at least- one hundred plus degree weather, skirting specific kinds of holes, stones, and plants, but entirely disregarding others.

Neji was pretty sure he had a sunburn on his face, which was extremely annoying, because his nose and the tops of his cheeks had been tinted pink like a blush this morning. Mai, Fumiko's brash younger sister, had said it was no big deal and for a pale person like him unused to Suna weather it was lucky he wasn't charbroiled, but it still didn't sit right with him.

He wanted to get out of the sun as soon as possible. He was growing to hate it. A little warm sunshine was fine, below freezing weather was fine, a bit of a hot day was fine, but Suna was just ridiculous. He didn't understand how Gaara was as pale as he was, or how Fumiko wasn't brown like her sister.

In any case, he hadn't just come out here for a walk in the scorching hot desert. Really, it'd been a stupid idea, he could have just pulled her off to the side, but in the shade of a building, the plan had made a lot more sense.

"Fumiko," he said, and instantly she stopped humming and looked at him, still smiling.

"Hmmm? What?"

"Your birthday... I'm afraid we missed it."

"My sixteenth? Yeah, but it's no big deal. I mean I've never been to any of your birthday parties." She paused at the thought. Neji could practically see wheels spinning behind her eyes. She gasped. "Sugar! I've never been to any of your guys' birthday parties! Isn't Choji's coming up soon?"

"I meant to say that when I first received your invitation, I did get you a gift in preparation," Neji said to steer the conversation back in the direction he had wanted it to go in the first place.

Instantly her face lit up like a child's on Christmas. "You did? What is it?"

Neji wasn't exactly sure why he hadn't been able to bring it out during the party like everyone else. He just hadn't wanted to, and despite planning otherwise kept the thing stowed away in his pocket. That was why he'd asked her to walk with him in the first place- so he could give it to her in peace.

Now he pulled it out- a small box he had never actually opened, plain brown straight from the store- there was a logo for the knickknack shop on the lid- without ribbons or wrappings or bows. It was barely the size of his palm.

Fumiko took it as soon as she saw it, and at this point Neji knew her well enough not to be offended. She wasn't being rude, just overly excited. He'd been afraid she would be different- different like he remembered her being when he left Sunagakure after Gaara's resuscitation. But she seemed just like her old self.

She opened the box, sticking the lid to the bottom with her hand, and then pulled out the glass prism with her fingers, letting out a small sound of curiosity as she held it up to the light. Instantly the sun filtered into it and cast a rainbow on the dune beneath their feet.

He almost felt bad at the wide-eyed look of astonishment. Really, the thing had only cost him three hundred yen and change. If Neji had thought Fumiko would actually prefer something expensive he would've bought something different, but it seemed perfect enough for the person she, at the very least, used to be.

"It's a prism," Neji explained when she said nothing at all, toying with the shapes of the rainbows in the sand. "It refracts pure white light into the colors of the spectrum."

"So, so, it's... It's like a portable rainbow?"

Neji blinked, then shrugged, ghost of a smile crossing his lips. "Yes, I suppose so."

Neji was expecting her to freak out, talk so fast he wouldn't be able to pick it up, hug him, and then tear off to show Gaara her new toy. A year ago, that's exactly what she would have done.

Now her grin was blindingly bright just as it used to be, and her eyes were excited, but her entire posture had succumbed to a kind of fluid gentleness. Fumiko turned the prism over and over in her fingers, focusing intently for a moment at the colors reflecting off her skin and the sand, before looking up at him.

Neji wasn't sure if he liked this or not.

Fumiko's eyes turned soft like melted chocolate. "Thank you, Neji," she said in a normal upbeat tone that to him, just seemed quiet. "I could really use a portable rainbow."

And Neji couldn't tell if she was being serious or not.

...

~ "We- what?" Gaara stammered, turning, but by then she had backed away from the window and was already out the bedroom door. "Fumiko, wait!" ~

...

"How fitting," was Gaara's comment when she showed him that night.

"I think I want to make another necklace." She rubbed the glass with her thumb. Fumiko was sitting on the bed with her legs drawn up to her chest- well, they were super uneven, but it was still comfortable. Gaara was still in the bathroom finishing up brushing his teeth since he'd just gotten back from his office. "Maybe a drawstring pouch, or something. So that i's easier to carry around."

Gaara came out of the bathroom, flicking the light off. "You really miss your old one, don't you?" he asked.

"Yeah. It feels weird not to have one." She made a face, then laughed. "I mean, I had a necklace on every day for almost seven years."

Gaara sat down on the bed, already changed. "I think it's a good idea."

"Really?"

"Well, yes. You of all people should have a portable rainbow."

...

~ "Come on, Gaara!" was her reply. From the sound of it, she was already in the living room. "Hurry!" ~

...

Fumiko hugged each and every one of them goodbye as they left to head back to Leaf. They hadn't actually been called back, but she could tell that for one thing, they hated her desert, and for another, most of them were getting restless from the lack of action and missions. They all wanted to get back home, Uzumaki Naruto especially.

Fumiko was wearing Lee's weights, which looked kind of like green bracelets, only they were heavier. It made the hugging and waving slightly more taxing, but in the long run she knew it would probably actually help with her taijutsu.

Gaara was here as well to send them off, but he would go straight back to the office to work as soon as they were out of eyesight. Usually Fumiko would help him, but she had a few buckets of paint in the nursery and a lot of roller brushes waiting for her.

"Goodbye, Lee!"

"Goodbye, Fumiko-chan!"

"See you, Fumiko!"

"Bye, Choji, I'll see you later! Thanks for the meal!"

Shikamaru had asked for the instructions to make the chocolate cigarettes, claiming that his mother would love it and had been nagging his new habit since it started. Fumiko, personally, hoped that they would work better in Konoha, where it was less hot and chocolate-melting.

Eventually they had all left and shimmered out of sight over the dunes. She and Gaara hurried back to the Tower, both because they wanted to avoid being asked any more questions, and also because Fumiko really, really, really had to pee.

...

~ Gaara sighed, then quickly followed before his friend could get all the way outside without his help. Going out into a sandstorm was a horrible idea, but Fumiko was determined now. ~

...

She could feel paint crusting all over her face.

She had gotten through a lot of the room, most of the bottom and some of the middle, although she would have to either enlist Gaara's help or find a ladder to get the upper parts of the walls. Fumiko was using a really light shade of powder blue, and planned to use white and dark blue to put swirly sand-mist designs and maybe a few more brightly colored murals...

It had taken the better part of a week to get this much done, and there was paint all over both herself and the tons of spread out newspapers and tarps scattered on the floor. She looked like a blue-spotted Dalmatian between her white maternity shirt and somewhat pale skin.

It would probably take a while longer to finish completely, but she had plenty of time to spend, and it was fun whenever a servant or maid happened to come by and she pulled them in to help. They seemed to enjoy getting pulled out of work now; they never complained anymore.

...

~ At least the winds weren't so bad... ~

...

It seemed like he was getting more and more work to do each passing day.

Gaara had long since figured out that the other Kage thought he was an impudent teenager to young to be in his position- the only two that actually bothered to reply at first had insisted on it. So far, Kumo was the only village that agreed that the Akatsuki were a formidable threat at all. He didn't want to send too many messages- because some of the Hidden villages locations were only vaguely known anyway, so he had to send squads of ninja...

With full possibilities of non-treaty villages taking them out. Which, thankfully, hadn't happened yet.

Fumiko, beside him, took a sip of water from the thermos. While he focused on inter-village relations, she was going through some of the more mundane parts of Sunagakure's life, the useless things and requests and insults and suggestions from advisers. She was wearing a yellow maternity shirt that she didn't quite need yet but she claimed was ore comfortable at this point than her tight turtlenecks.

It was still astonishing that with all of Fumiko's hyperactivity, she was perfectly capable of sitting down and doing nothing but bland paperwork for hours on end. Of course, every once in a while papers went through with random doodles on the margins, but more often than not she didn't lose focus, keeping up a steady stream of chatter as she did.

"It's really coming along. But I think I might need your help painting the tops of the walls."

"Hmm." Gaara muttered.

They both looked up when the door suddenly opened. Two ninja spilled inside- the two runner-nin that spent most of their time manning the aviary room. One of them carried an opened scroll with a broken Seal in one hand, and the other carried a separate sheet of paper, probably whatever code had been broken.

"Hello," Fumiko said. "What-"

"Kazekage-sama," they interrupted. "Urgent news from Konoha."

"What is it?" he demanded, voice level. "What news?"

Gaara's hands were full of papers, so while he tapped them out Fumiko took the translated letter from the ninja, who hesitated to let her do so until Gaara gave him a dry stare. Fumiko eyes skimmed over the message, mouthing along to the words until her eyes widened.

"Oh, no," she muttered.

"What is it?" Gaara dropped the stack and put his brush into the tin. Fumiko stuck hers behind her ear, despite the black ink smearing into her hair. "What does it say?"

Fumiko's fingers clenched.

Akatsuki.

"It's Jiraiya."

"The Sannin? Naruto's master?"

"Yeah, he's-" Her voice choked off and she handed it to him. Gaara let his eyes slide over the kanji. Jiraiya the Toad Sage... Akatsuki... Gaara's eyes narrowed in shock. "... He's dead, Gaara. Akatsuki killed him."

...

~ Gaara held back the sand as best he could from inside, spotting while Fumiko ran around the house to just outside her bedroom window, hair whipping like snakes, grabbed whatever it was and tucking it into her arms, then ran back inside, covered in sand. ~

...

Fumiko passed the time by pulling water out of thin air. She was getting better- after months and months of practicing, she could summon water from the molecules in the air, and she could mildly shape already existing water to her will, although she couldn't quite yet use a definite jutsu.

Gaara was rushing about, talking to advisers and giving orders to various ninja. She couldn't keep up, and anyway, her head was spinning.

Kami, that was... insane.

Uzumaki Naruto had been here barely over a week ago. Jiraiya had been fine a week and two days ago.

First Asuma, and now Jiraiya? It wasn't another two man team, either, it was someone called Pein- but with the message Jiraiya had left, it made it seem like more than one or even two people. How many? 'The real one's not among them.' How many were there, plus the other, hidden one? Gahh. There wasn't enough information. There wasn't enough to draw a reasonable conclusion.

In accordance with her brain and apparently her mood, the water formed a cloud. Fumiko flinched and dropped it, and the new liquid splattered to the sand in a dark spot for a few moments before drying up. Sunagakure wasn't the best place to practice Suiton. Fumiko liked to think that if she was in a place with more moisture in the air, she would have even better control.

If this kept up, something was going to go down. Chances were that they were gunning for Uzumaki Naruto again, considering that they had taken down Jiraiya- even if the Sannin had gone to the Hidden Rain on his own, he'd sent a message to Uzumaki Naruto to warn him of the one of the Pains that wasn't with the rest.

There. That was something, maybe. They were still after Uzumaki Naruto. But according to Tsunade's letter, Uzumaki Naruto had reverse-summoned himself to Mount Myoboku to train in senjutsu with the Toads, so Konoha was as safe as it could be.

Which actually made her think.

She'd promised Shaapu that she wouldn't summon any of the bats without their permission, but she hadn't realized while she said that that she wouldn't be able to ask their permission without summoning them. Fumiko could try to summon one of the diplomat ones for a few minutes to work that out, but she didn't want to make them mad.

Reverse-summon, huh...

She wished she could go to Jiraiya's funeral. She hadn't known him very well, and in fact had only met him a few times at all- she knew Asuma better- but Uzumaki Naruto had talked about him enough on his visit to Suna that she felt like she knew the man well. And Uzumaki Naruto would have been devastated. Now that she thought about it, she wished she could have gone to Asuma's funeral, too.

Funerals were kind of weird. You were saying goodbye to a corpse, and it wasn't like you couldn't do it later, alone, at any other time.

But it was the point of everyone coming together to bid a friend farewell that made them important. Because, really, how many people would attend her own funeral, if she were to die tomorrow? Or Gaara's? A lot, she realized. There would be so many people. How many had showed up to Asuma's? Or Jiraiya's?

Not enough, probably.

...

~ Gaara slammed the door behind her. He could already hear Mr. Mitsuwa starting off from his bedroom loudly. Chances were he'd heard the door open and close. He turned to glance in the direction of Fumiko's parents' room, and was stopped by laughter. ~

...

The days after that, Gaara was so busy that she couldn't even help him out. It kind of scared her a little. He was almost- angry, snappish and tense. He never snapped at her, really, but she couldn't really calm him down, either- she knew him winding down wasn't him being less upset, just him trying not to worry her 'in her condition'.

Fumiko spent most of her time painting murals in the nursery. She'd eventually dragged out a ladder from one of the storage rooms in the basement and finished the initial coat of blue, and before she did the detail-design, she wanted to do the murals, big shapes and animals and extremely non-detailed, baseline landscapes of forests and oceans and snowy horizons- things that her sons wouldn't see for the majority of their lives, if they chose to live in Suna for good.

It was a day like this- and the strange part was that she was actually wondering at that exact moment how Gaara was doing; The news had hit him harder than a stranger would expect- but a blow to Uzumaki Naruto was a blow to her best friend, not to mention what this meant for the sheer strength of Akatsuki to take out a Sannin, and Gaara almost didn't let her help him- when Gaara opened the door to the nursery.

Fumiko felt his chakra and almost turned around fast enough to throw herself off the ladder. Sand flung forward immediately to steady her.

"Gaara!" she said happily. "Gaara, look at-... Gaara?"

Gaara didn't look quite right. His real eyes flickered around the room, not really seeming to actually see anything. They were so narrowed they were almost closed; a flicker of eon light through a blacked out curtain; and his one right fist was clenching and unclenching. His hat was gone, forgotten, probably, on his desk.

In his other hand he held another scroll. The broken seal wasn't a red alert color, but it was pretty advanced in that it looked like a specified seal- only some people could open it at all. It fluttered in a nonexistent breeze, dangling from his fingers.

Pressure squished her torso and legs gently, and Fumiko flinched a little before realizing that it was just sand. She let go of the ladder as Gaara pulled her away from the wall and set her softly on the floor next to a bin full of diapers.

"Aa," he muttered through clenched teeth; not quite a huff of frustration, but it wasn't exactly relieved, either. His body hummed with an almost excited tension. It was like he couldn't decide whether to be upset or laughing.

The sand dropped away from her skin to hiss along the floor to crawl up Gaara's body and into his gourd. "Gaara?" she asked uncertainly, hand going up to grab nothing at the base of her neck. "What's going on? You're acting weird."

"Something happened," he said.

"Something- like what? Gaara?" Fumiko bit her lip. If he'd come down several flights of stairs from his office after reading whatever it said in that scroll just to show her, then that meant it was important to her, specifically, otherwise he would've just told her later, when she brought him up dinner. "Like... Akatsuki?"

"Yes," he said.

Fumiko froze, fingers clenching her roller-brush at her side. It was probably dripping paint all over the tarp she was standing on, but she didn't care. Was it another Asuma? Was Pein back? Had whoever it was been killed and that's why Gaara looked happy? "What! What happened?"

"It's Deidara," Gaara said at last. "Konoha believes that Uchiha Sasuke killed Deidara."

...

~ "Look, Gaara!" Fumiko cried, holding out what looked like an extremely tired, battered, miniature version of a messenger hawk. He blinked. "A bird!" ~

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will serious pay someone to go through both my accounts stories and fix the formatting


	14. Incense

...

~ Fumiko rattled the newly refilled bowl of candy. On Halloween, the Tower was always a popular target for kids to trick-or-treat at. ~

...

Heart. Wave. Tiny tornado. Kitten.

Fumiko toyed with the clear water, swirling it through the air just above her fingers, shaping it. Suiton wasn't about amount or power, it was about being able to take any shape without faltering. To control water was to let yourself be, and Fumiko was pretty good at that.

She was in the water reservoir, sitting on the edge of the pool with her right leg and the very end of her left knee submerged. Her sandal sat next to her next to her unhooked prosthetic and sock. It actually felt really good, the coolness of it, despite the stagnant heat in the air. It was kind of like Gaara, not quite warm and not quite cold, just cool.

If she fell in she would drown because she couldn't swim, but that wasn't important.

She didn't know any other Suiton users. Everyone she knew was a fire user, or a wind user, an earth user, even Kakashi had an affinity for lightning. But many of those people knew a little bit about nature transformation, and if at least Temari and Mai were right, she would be able to use actual jutsu, or even to make her own jutsu- which would be awesome.

Supposedly, it was easier to make your own jutsu when it was directly related to your strongest nature affinity than just, like, randomly coming up with a jutsu like Kage bunshin no jutsu or transformation. Which made sense, Fumiko thought as she curled her fingers, and the water hissed and gurgled. If she could do this, she could do something better, even without hand seals.

The liquid churned as she made a messy bird, flapping it's wings in slow motion, curling in a slow, sluggish spiral through the air. Light from the partially open Reservoir door filtered through it, casting something of a wavy, watery white-blue on the ground to her right that slithered over her clothes. Fumiko bit her lip as suddenly it didn't look like Asuka anymore and her attempt at eyes were just sad sunken holes, and the tail started to split and-

She dropped the jutsu instantly, mind stinging. It splashed back into the Reservoir pool, splattering her lap and leaving behind tiny ripples that spread across the surface. When she realized what she'd done, she frowned, then sighed.

Deidara was dead. She'd kind of hoped that once he was killed her weird feelings would go away, but now if anything, they were worse. The nightmares increased. She saw him in places that didn't make sense. Clay became an unusable outlet, which was frustrating; she liked throwing pots and painting pet projects. Gaara was worried, and quite honestly so was she.

Like... why? Why did it still bother her? Why did the news of his death at Sasuke's hands make her feel so... bitter inside?

The door slid open without a single sound, light shafting over the pool.

"The hell are you doing here?" whoever it was muttered, startled. Fumiko blinked, looking away from her rippling reflection, and shifting her gaze instead to the door, where Mai stood with her now gloved hand still on the knob. She looked really weird, with a cropped, half-sleeved black leather jacket, and underneath that a dark brown leather chest plate set over a fishnet top. Fumiko could pick out the edge of a thick dark scar that curled from her left side to her visible belly button. Her pants were looser, and she lacked her ever present swords. There were arm guards strapped to her wrists.

"Practicing Suiton," she answered immediately, eyes drawn to the something tucked under her sister's arm. "What are you doing?"

Mai shrugged. The upright collar of her jacket pushed up her slightly less tangled than usual ponytail. "Going swimming."

"In that?"

"By now, you should be able to tell when I'm feeding you bullshit." Mai snorted. She loped over and sat criss-crossed on the ground beside her, although she didn't dip her feet in the water. "How's it going?"

So this was ANBU-Mai. Sort of. Fumiko guessed that she didn't ask the other members what was up. Fumiko glanced at the tall ears of Mai's mask sticking out from underneath her arm. "Uh, do you have to be anywhere?"

"Not for another six minutes or so." Mai grinned. "Anyway, I can't until you go find Gaara."

"Huh? That doesn't make any sense..."

"Seriously?" Mai scoffed. "C'mon, sis, you're the one who got all the smarts. Doesn't matter, anyway. I haven't seen you since yesterday. You weren't at breakfast. Don't tell me you're getting sick again?"

"No." Fumiko smiled and patted her stomach. Thinking about it, it made sense Mai wanted her to leave- that's what she was saying without saying it. If Mai was dressed up like she was going to disappear for another day or two, yet walked into the water Reservoir, then chances were she either needed something from here or there was some kind of cool secret entrance. "I just get really tired... sometimes."

Mai hesitated. "Have you heard anything from Naruto? I know you mailed him a couple times."

Fumiko shook her head. "No, he's training at Mount Myoboku with the toads. I can't send him anymore letters there. I think." She paused. "Where is Mount Myoboku, anyway...?"

"In a magical summons land." Mai was quiet for another moment, lost in her own thoughts. Her face turned pensive. But before Fumiko could ask what was wrong, her expression cleared. Mai nudged Fumiko's shoulder with her own. The scar on her lip curved. "Hey, so I really need to go swimming now."

"Right now?"

"Yep."

"Can't I just close my eyes?"

"If you want me to get arrested, go for it." She snickered at Fumiko's wide eyes. "I'm just kidding, sis. The watch isn't here. If he was, you would've never even saw me." Mai paused, eyes flicking up towards the ceiling. "At least, I don't think he is," she muttered. "I can't feel his... anyway! Go help Gaara with his shit."

"How long?" Fumiko asked, pulling her legs out of the water. She slipped on her chakra sock despite the fact that her stump was still wet, followed quickly by her prosthetic. It felt weird and slippery-squishy, but she didn't really mind it. "Will you be gone, I mean. So Kankuro and the other's don't get worried."

Her sister heaved fluidly to her feet, then held out a hand. Fumiko took it. Her younger sister was strong, very strong, easily pulling her to her foot with just her one hand and steadying her until she was actually upright and balanced and not about to fall in the pool and drown. "Dunno. Couple days, maybe. Depends. Hey, tell Shorty-sama I'll report to him, directly."

"Um, okay." she said, then smiled again. "Be careful."

"Who, me?" Mai feigned surprise, but she was already grinning. "I am always."

Fumiko laughed. "Okay."

She started to walk away, but Mai caught her shoulder before she could. At her questioning glance, her sister just rolled her eyes. "Nothing. I just forgot to tell you a runner ran me down earlier, said he had more mail for you. Good luck with that, I guess."

Fumiko chewed her lip lightly. The letters had slowed. Mostly. Okay, not really, but the majority of the letters she got now were mainly just bitter things from the same handful of people whose names she recognized enough that at this point she just whited everything out without reading it and putting the slips of paper into her art supply boxes. "Do you know who from?"

"Nah. The guy said, Mai-san, please let Lady Fumiko know that we have a letter for her in the aviary." Mai scowled, a toothy sign of displeasure. "Also, your stupid bird's being a menace again. It tried to bite me."

"Why were you-"

"I'll tell you later," she groaned impatiently, pushing her all the way back around until she was facing the door and shoved. Fumiko almost tripped and fell on her face, but she managed to practically run forward a few steps and catch her balance. As soon as her arms stopped flailing, she paused, looked back at Mai and opened her mouth to try and finish asking her question.

"M-"

"I don't feeling being lectured. Piss off." Despite her words, there was no real anger in her biting tone, not even annoyance. "I mean it. I know where you sleep."

Even if that had been an actual threat from an actual enemy, Fumiko wouldn't really have taken it too seriously. Even if she didn't tell Gaara- which she totally would- his instincts were incredible and so was his hearing even while asleep. So far, there hadn't been any obvious bedroom-assassination attempt, at least not that she could tell- she slept so deep, though, that she almost wouldn't be surprised if she'd accidentally slept through a brawl...

She left, closing the door firmly behind her. Fumiko had the sneaking suspicion that if she opened the door again, her sister would be nowhere to be found, gone just as quickly as footprints in the sand.

...

~ Since the Tower officially was closed anyway and there were always a bunch of kids and her prosthetic made it hard to get up and go to the door every time it got knocked on, she was instead sitting at the desk that usually a receptionist sat on to filter though requests and mail and check-ins to the guest room floor, and the huge doors were held open with door stoppers to let kids come and go as they please. ~

...

"No. Not happening."

Fumiko bristled. "Yes. Yes it is."

Gaara rubbed at his face. They were lying in bed, or at least they had been until Fumiko casually brought up her plan to travel to Konoha for Choji's birthday that she'd been invited to- hoping to catch him in his relaxed state, because sometimes when he was like that he just agreed to everything she said and put his face in her hair without even hearing her.

Now he was sitting up, blankets pooled around his waist. Fumiko was lying down, mostly because she was tired and didn't see the point in sitting up despite their game of verbal tennis. It really was amazing how many times Gaara could say the exact same things over and over so many times without realizing that it wasn't furthering his argument at all.

"No."

"I've missed every single one of all their birthday parties, and they came down here for like a month to come to mine!" she protested. "And it's Choji, Gaara. I can't not go."

"You can and you will."

Excuse me? "That's not how it works, no, sorry. I don't care if you are Kazekage." Okay, so maybe all of a sudden recently she'd been having an easier time being snappy than she had for the rest of her natural life because hormones, but it might possibly work in her favor now. "You can't make me."

"What are you, seven?"

"Yes." she said in all seriousness. "And I will not hesitate to throw a fit."

"Ugh." Gaara rubbed his face again, with both hands this time. "What's happening to you?"

Despite her mild irritation, Fumiko grinned. "Your sons are happening to me. Look, they're already stubborn. Just like their daddy."

Gaara flushed. She laughed. "You're changing the subject," he accused. He wasn't exactly angry, more frustrated and slightly baffled with lack of practice arguing with her. "I'm not letting you travel three days to Konoha without me."

"You can come," she protested. "Choji won't-"

"I'm the Kazekage," he pointed out dryly. "I can't exactly take vacations."

"You can too."

"No, I really can't."

"Just say it's for something political that you need to talk to the Hokage about." Fumiko shrugged against the pillows and poked Gaara's side. "Tsunade likes being sneaky, she'll back you up and you know it."

She wanted him to lie down so she could burrow. It was almost irritating that he wasn't being difficult, because she was going to Choji's birthday party and he was just being difficult when they could be sleeping instead. Gaara scowled, both at her and not at her.

"I-"

"Don't even say it's dishonest, Gaara. You're a ninja for sugar's sake."

Gaara looked like he wanted to stick his face in a pillow and scream, but he only took a deep breath. He was getting flustered, and Fumiko knew that because even in the darkness of super-early-morning she could see his flush. "I said no."

"And I said yes. We've been over this five million times. Lie down, please."

He completely ignored her entire statement, rolling his eyes, which made her stiffen under the covers. "Stop it. You know you can't."

"Give me one good reason why not."

"You're pregnant, it's dangerous anyway for you to travel no matter who you are, you're well known and a prime target for anyone who dislikes me or Sunagakure in general, I can't go with you, and Konoha right now is possibly a target for the Akatsuki who killed Jiraiya of the three legendary Sannin." Gaara listed immediately, turning his head so that his eyes seemed to push her.

"That's five reasons." Fumiko rolled over and hid her face in the pillow. "And I'm only like thirteen or fourteen weeks in, I can order a C-rank escort squad, I can make Mai's team my C-rank escort squad, you can too come with me even if it's not the entire time, and Uzumaki Naruto isn't there and with all the other stuff they know that they're not supposed to know, they probably know that."

"Only thirteen or fourteen weeks-" Gaara was starting to mutter, which meant he was actually sort of getting angry, or at the very least riled up. "Fumiko, you're not helping you're argument! I wouldn't care if the medics told you it was perfectly fine and good to go, you're still pregnant."

Fumiko said nothing, merely hugging the pillow and continuing to smother her face in it.

"You're not going."

"..." Fumiko just bit her lip. She just wanted to go to sleep, it was three in the morning and she just wanted to go to sleep. And have Gaara hold her. She had to pee. And she wanted to go to Choji's party. And Gaara was pulling her blankets away every time he twisted or gestured with his arms. And she was hungry and wanted him to stop being angry so she could ask him to get peaches.

"Fumiko."

"Mm." she forced out, just a growling noise in her throat.

"Stop ignoring me."

I'll ignore you all I want, you angry flustered unfair son of a peach.

Gaara touched her shoulder. She turned on her side facing away from him and pulled the blanket up to her nose. Yes, she was being petty. Yes, she knew from experience that he hated being ignored. He made a noise in the back of his throat. "Look, I'm sorry you can't go to the party, but you know I'm only trying to protect you."

When she didn't answer, perfectly content to focus on not wiggling because Kami she had to pee- but she wouldn't. Because if she got up and went to the bathroom then she'd have to come back and he wouldn't let her lie down and hide again- he lied down to try and appease her, but that only made it impossible for her to turn around because she knew if she did he would have his sad guilty kicked-puppy look face and that wouldn't be good at all for her conscience.

"Fumi-" he started, and then he very definitely froze, she could feel it on the sheets. "Don't. Please. Please don't- don't cry."

Nooo, she thought at herself. Don't cry. But she was, tiny little sniffles that made her shoulder shiver. Why was she crying? She was going to the party anyway, it wasn't like she should be frustrated. She wriggled further under the blanket. After a second she could feel Gaara start to try and pull it down but she kept a stubborn hold on it with her fingers.

"Go way," she muttered.

Gaara hummed in distress, trying to get closer, sliding an arm over her torso. He might've put his face in her hair if it wasn't covered by blue blankets. "You're not being fair," he tried.

"Neither are y-you."

The stutter made him wince. His arm tightened. "Don't cry," he said again. His voice was jittery and strained. Crying people always made him nervous, whether it was her or a perfect stranger.

Much as she tried, Gaara was stronger than her, and eventually he worked the blanket down away from her face enough to put his nose in her neck. Fumiko just crossed her arms now that her hands weren't busy. "I need to pee," she mumbled and tried to roll off the bed, but Gaara didn't let her.

"Stop. Stop it."

"I n-need to pee, Gaara!" she huffed, even though his lips on her neck made her want to melt anyway, and the upset apologetic panicky tone of his voice, but this was his fault and she still really needed to pee, it wasn't just an escape route. "Let go!"

Pushing his arm didn't seem to make much of a difference. Fumiko was pretty sure the near invulnerable S-rank flee-on-sight Kazekage didn't even feel it. Now she was starting to squirm. "I'm- sorry," he murmured quietly.

He could apologize all he wanted, but if he didn't let her go to the bathroom she was going to bite him, even if she wasn't upset. "Let me g-go," she warned. "Now."

Obviously he didn't consider her very much of an actual threat because he just continued to mumble into her ear that he was really sorry and he would make it up to her and would she please turn around and stop crying and go to sleep and pretend this hadn't happened. She couldn't, actually, bite him because unless she rolled over and bit his nose nothing else was near her mouth.

It made her need to pee even more- at this point between her lack of prosthetic and procrastination in getting up earlier she wasn't even sure if she would make it to the bathroom, so she didn't care- but Fumiko focused on the air above them, making a hand sign under the blanket, and at least it was getting colder because hot air was terrible for drawing out water.

Gaara gasped and immediately recoiled when it splashed the entire side of his face that wasn't against the sheets, rolling onto his back automatically out of shock to wipe it off. Great. Now her side of the bed had a wet spot and it'd gotten on her too.

Ignoring that, she seized the opportunity to flee, practically rolling off the mattress and falling out of the covers before getting up and hopping as fast as she could to the bathroom before either she accidentally peed herself or Gaara recovered, slamming the door behind her, not even bothering to lock it.

She sat down on the toilet. Fumiko could hear Gaara's muttered cursing from the bed, partially confused and partially exasperated. The mattress creaked as he either sat up or got out of the bed, she couldn't really tell. She wiped the back of her neck and realized her hair was damp too. She wiped her face to rid it of leftover tears, forcing it to stop.

When she was done she washed her hands but hesitated at the door, using the knob and the wall beside it to keep balanced along with the occasional hop. Really, she could just hide out in here the rest of the night... but that made about as much sense as Gaara sitting up while they were arguing before because either way she was going to the party and wet spot or not she liked her comfy bed and wanted to sleep in it.

Gaara went quiet when she carefully made her way out, hands against the wall. He seemed torn, like he wanted to help her walk but didn't know if he should. She fixed that with a somewhat dirty look, and he scratched his dry cheek awkwardly. The other half of his face and the entire back of his head was wet, his hair dark with water.

Kami, she felt weird. Stupid random spontaneous tears.

And now that she thought about it, stupid cravings. She'd probably feel better if she ate. Yeah. That would help.

She sat down on the opposite side of the bed and leaned down to snag her chakra sock.

"Where are you going?" Gaara's voice was almost cutely subdued.

"Kitchen."

"... Why?"

"'Cause I'm hungry." she answered, picking up her prosthetic.

"Oh."

He followed her at a distance as she left the room, probably afraid of getting drenched again, without saying anything. The living hall was totally silent, they must not have been arguing very loudly since Temari hadn't come knocking. Kankuro would sleep through a bombing.

Fumiko was riffling through the fruits when she remembered Mai's message for Gaara, who was sort of standing in the doorway like he didn't know what to do with himself, fiddling with anything his fingers touched; the hem of his shirt, his elbows, his sleeves, his wrists. "Hey, Gaara."

"Uh- huh? Yes?"

"Mai said she would report directly to you when she got back. I forgot. She told me earlier." She wasn't sure what he was being so anxious about, she wasn't mad anymore, and Gaara was usually good at picking up on that. Maybe he was embarrassed. At that, though, he straightened a little with surprise.

"She told you she was leaving?"

"No." Fumiko laughed, which seemed to throw Gaara off, judging by his pursed lips. She top a bite from her peach. "I... caught her at the 'ater tower. On accident. I was practicing."

"Suiton, I assume," he said with a shy little half-smile, picking again at his sleeve.

"I'm still going to Choji's party."

...

~ Despite the holiday, Gaara was still hiding out in his office, hoping to get yesterday's work all caught up. Fumiko didn't really want to go trick-or-treating without him, and she was really getting to old for it anyway- or so she was told. They hadn't gone trick-or-treating together since they were little, eleven or twelve. ~

...

"So, basically, you gave up your entire argument and cowed like a lovesick loser." Kankuro didn't look at all impressed, rolling his phillips head screwdriver in his fingers as he twisted around in his chair, away from his workshop desk and the puppet that sat on it. "You know, that's pretty lame."

Gaara's shoulders slumped. He was sitting on Kankuro's bed, messing with a nail that probably shouldn't have been in the covers anyway. "She cried. I don't know why she started crying."

"And you think I can help?" Kankuro snorted. "Gaara, she's pregnant. As far as stereotypes go, she could burst into tears literally over spilled milk."

Gaara squinted. "Perhaps, but-"

"So you didn't say anything, right? Just followed her back into the bedroom?"

"Yes." Gaara's cheeks colored slightly. He didn't really know why he'd come to Kankuro, it just seemed better then going to Temari, who would just make fun of him and then side with Fumiko anyway. Speaking of his girlfriend, she was cooking anmitsu in the kitchen and probably thought he was working.

His brother shrugged noncommittally. "You could pick up the argument again. You're the Kazekage, no matter what she thinks. You want to make her stay, you can make her stay. And you're right. Logically." he mused. "But knowing you, you won't, because you freak out when she cries and she probably will if you bring it up again."

"You're not helping."

Kankuro snickered. "Remind me never to get a girl pregnant."

Gaara's nose wrinkled. "No, I..."

"I know, little brother." He sighed, turning back to his puppet. "If it makes you feel any better, Fumiko's probably right about one thing. The chances of anything happening in Konoha, or anything happening to her specifically if anything happens in Konoha, are really slim."

...

~ Well, Gaara'd never dressed up anyway, just accompanied her with her homemade costumes all over the place. It wasn't like they'd ever gotten any candy, people at that time had usually either ignored the door or didn't see them through a window, opened it, then closed it again. ~

...

Dear Choji,

Sorry it took so long to reply! Of course I'll come to your party, I wouldn't miss it! Mai is on a mission and should be back today or tomorrow. As soon as she does, we'll head out. Gaara's going to come, too, but only for a few days, He'll leave before the party, but I'll be there! 

Can't wait to see you! I've got your Ichiraku coupon already packed!

With love,

Fumiko

...

~ Fumiko had always just done it for the costume. Afterwards they'd always come back to the Tower and stolen chocolate from the kitchen. ~

...

Dear Tsunade,

I just got invited to Choji's party, and Gaara wants to go too, at least for a little while. Would you mind doing us a huge favor? Gaara says you won't and I shouldn't ask you, but I think you will.

Details included.

With love,

Fumiko

...

~ She smiled at a group of kids that ran in, whooping and dressed in store bought costumes. There were six of them, four boys and two girls, dressed up in both classic and unorthodox outfits- Fumiko saw a zombie, a mummy, a princess from some movie she knew she'd seen somewhere, a witch, some kind of dog, and a bed sheet ghost. ~

...

"This is kinda weird," Mai commented, glancing around the interior of the caravan. She sat on the seat opposite Gaara and Fumiko, sitting on the edge both because she was a ninja and because her swords prevented her sitting back. There was a kunai in her hand, flipping about, and Fumiko had long since noticed the flash of what looked like a senbon loosely tied to the back of her earring.

Fumiko had to agree, laughing. "I don't think I've ever ridden in a caravan for my entire life."

"It wasn't my first choice, I promise you." Gaara sighed, somehow still in the gentle heaving and rocking of the transport. "Since I claimed this as a political matter, the Council requires I take an escort."

By 'escort' the council meant three squads of chuunin and jonin ninja, not including Mai's team, since that was Fumiko's own doing. Only Mai was actually in the caravan with them- everyone else was outside walking, which make her feel kind of bad. The caravan was actually being pulled by some of those same ninja- albeit easily- which made her feel even worse.

"This doesn't make sense," Fumiko said. "I mean, against bandits and stuff, yeah, sure, but if they're expecting us to get jumped by Akatsuki- who would kill or escort probably easily- then this is super conspicuous."

"I know." Gaara shrugged. "But you were right in saying that in all likelihood, nothing will happen."

"Yeah, don't worry about it, sis," Mai said, rifling through her pack. "We've got this. Eishi and Shiragiku know what they're doing, and they've got perimeter. Otokaze-sensei's at the back of this thing."

"I thought teams were supposed to do a four point star?"

Mai shrugged, trading her kunai for a short band of razor wire. Years ago when she'd first started to like it, she'd absolutely torn up her fingers, but now she could play with it like a pro without hurting herself. "Strategically, four point star is the safest route, but when it comes to the people we're facing, it's better to be close than spread out. If they got past our four point star, we leave the escort open. This way, I'm in here. Plans always dissolve because someone gets in and no one's ever actually in here."

Fumiko hummed. "Will we still get there in three days like when we travel on foot?"

"Probably just." Gaara replied. "It gets much slower when we hit the trees, but we should still make it before sunrise of the fourth day."

"How do they get past the trees?"

Gaara smiled slightly at her curiosity. "There's an entirely different path for this kind of transport."

"Really?"

"I, for one, would rather walk," Mai said, not exactly under her breath. "It's been two days and I've barely even stood up."

"Sorry," Fumiko said apologetically, but she smiled and pulled up her prosthetic leg onto the seat. "At least you get to come to Konoha with us. You can see everyone again. Maybe you can have a rematch with Lee."

"I hate Konoha," she grumbled. "Freaking leaves freaking everywhere."

...

~ They all had probably been here last year and knew they wouldn't get yelled at for being loud, and they pushed and shoved at each other, laughing, to get to her desk first. Fumiko smiled, leaning up in her chair to see their costumes better. ~

...

"Lee!" Fumiko waved frantically, leaning out of the side of the caravan, which had finally stopped.

Lee blinked, startled. "Hello, Fumiko!"

"Choji! Oooh, Choji! Happy early birthday!" She ducked back into the carriage. "Gaara, come on, say hi!"

"I'll wait."

"Gaara, come on! Say hi! They missed us!"

He just looked at her, deadpan, and she laughed before sticking her head back out, and the rest of her too as she jumped the exit to the ground. She narrowly avoided a tree root, and made careful note to remind herself daily to watch out for those.

"Lee! Hiiii!"

...

~ "Trick-or-treat!" they chorused, and one boy started, "smell my feet and-" ~

...

"Mm-mmm-mm," Fumiko hummed, face stuffed with Naruto. Gaara, beside her, was a little more reserved, picking through his bowl of ramen with his chopsticks. It was really too bad that Uzumaki Naruto was off training. But then again, with the circumstances, if Uzumaki Naruto had been there Gaara would have tied her to the bed before letting her come to Konoha.

Choji was just as good of company, though, as were Shikamaru and Ino, who ate (despite Ino's diet) with them. They all talked happily and excitedly about the few things they'd missed over the short amount of time they'd been apart, Choji commenting that Fumiko's stomach had ballooned faster than his Body Expansion jutsu, after which Ino hit him and then sweetly commented that at her stage, she was still thin compared to other pregnant women she'd seen working in the hospital.

She told them about her Suiton training. Shikamaru informed her that Kakashi knew water release and could probably help her out with it.

She also was greeted kindly by the ramen stand owner, who recognized her and Gaara from Uzumaki Naruto's many stories, and given a free bowl despite her coupon, which she decided to save for a later date.

Mai was nearby just out of Fumiko's visual, with Eishi and Shiragiku and even Otokaze-sensei, who was taking at least this particular C-rank mission very seriously, if only because the Kazekage was here and could monitor his performance. In the throb of the village, Fumiko only caught flashes of their chakra, never exactly able to figure out where her sister was.

...

~ The witch elbowed him. "Akiko-kun!" she admonished, whacking him lightly with the handle of her broom before turning to smile at her. "Hi, Fumiko-san!" ~

...

Rather than the Nara complex, they stayed at the Akimichi's, who insisted on it. It was smaller than the Nara's, but much warmer, both in temperature since the ovens and appliances were always on and in temperament, as no Akimichi ever passed you by without saying at the very least hello.

Unlike with the Naras, she wasn't allowed to cook dinner- although she was perfectly welcome to help. There was always a ton of good warm food, and Choji's parents always insisted that they eat more. Fumiko was pretty sure they were going to give her leftovers to take home when Choji's party came to pass in two weeks or so.

They never said anything about her having a baby bump at such a young age, nor did they complain when she declined the second room they offered in favor of sleeping with Gaara.

She liked the Akimichis.

...

~ "Hi there," she said, and stuck her hand in the bowl of brightly wrapped candies. It was really hard to find candy in Sunagakure unless it was a few weeks before or after Halloween, the only time that stores usually stocked on sweets. "Here you go." ~

...

Gaara left before the actual party could occur. He'd more or less gone into Tsunade's office, asked a few questions about treaty relation so he had something to tell the council, and then talked about useless things until a sufficient amount of time had passed before leaving.

Fumiko was staying behind. She was a little anxious about the separation, but ignored it, hugging him goodbye at the entrance. The others gave her space.

"I'll be back before you know it," she said into his shirt.

"I'm counting on it." Gaara was slightly hesitant to hold her back in front of their friends, but did so anyway. "Have... have fun at Choji's party."

"Yeah! I'll give him your present, too. It's under the bed." She grinned. "Have fun working the desk. I promise I'll fix everything when I get back next week, okay?"

Gaara made a face. "Don't remind me."

The caravan was waiting. Fumiko didn't really know yet if when she went back she would have to take the caravan again, or if she would just be able to walk with Mai's genin team. She did know that the rest of the escort was leaving with Gaara, although she was also sure that Gaara probably had a few other ninja still here that she didn't know about.

"Okay," she agreed. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too," he said, and might've kissed her head if not for a shinobi from his escort calling impatiently at that exact second, "Lord Kazekage! We must go now!" from the caravan outside the gates. "Ignore them," he muttered.

"Ne, ne," she said, laughing, and pulled away. "You should go. Suna needs you." Fumiko paused. "Love you."

Gaara's smile was soft. "You too."

...

~ They all smiled toothy smiles, including the ghost, she assumed. The mummy was missing a tooth, from the half on his mouth she could see that wasn't covered in probably borrowed shinobi bandages. "Thanks, Fumiko-san!" ~

...

Choji's party was literally a big group all-you-can-eat get together at the barbeque restaurant.

It was great.

Team Otokaze finally made an appearance, minus their sensei. Mai sat at Fumiko's left and Lee on her right, and all three of them happily dug in, making messes of their hands and face and in some cases hair but nobody cared. Mrs. Akimichi only laughed and encouraged them.

Not everyone ate quite like that. To absolutely no one's surprise, Shiragiku was a vegetarian, so he just grilled vegetables and fruits and kebobbed them, eating lightly and probably only out of courtesty. Ino and Sakura ate minimally. Hinata didn't really eat anything save for a piece of chicken, and everyone else had a normal serving despite the all you can eat, except, of course, for Choji.

Everyone missed Uzumaki Naruto, Fumiko could tell, but nobody said anything about it, so neither did she.

Presents- well, one present literally got cooked, Lee accidentally dropped his gift on the barbeque grill between him and Choji, but it survived well enough- the paper melted but the present survived- were given, almost everyone pulling out food coupons except for herself, Lee, and Shikamaru.

Shikamaru just gave him a family size bag of Choji's favorite flavor of potato chips, which he loved no matter how lazy Ino said it was to get him that. Lee, both predictably and unpredictably, got him a set of brass knuckles that nobody, not even Fumiko, had the heart to tell him that Choji couldn't use since his fighting style made his hands expand.

Fumiko had made hers.

Cold porcelain, something that she forced herself not to consider clay, was kind of like a really nifty, homemade version of polymer clay or actual porcelain. It was made with a careful recipe of rice flour, wood glue, eucalyptus oil, petroleum jelly, and water. Even if she was able to use actual clay, cold porcelain was better for fine details, which was kind of the point of the entire gift.

The etchings were more or less overlapping inceptions of the Akimichi clan's symbol, but the paint itself- soft green and blue- made light designs and swirls like those on Choji's cheeks.

It was a sculpture of a butterfly, roughly the size of a small plate. The wings were only about as thin as a china teacup, the body maybe the thickness of her thumb. She'd had to pack it in like fifty gazillion layers of blankets and soft things so it wouldn't shatter into pieces, because sealing tags sometimes warped paint, and hers was very fine and very detailed. She gave this to him with a food coupon from Gaara.

"Here."

Choji blinked. Then blinked again. Then took it gingerly like it would break.

The rest of the table went quiet.

"Did you make this?" Choji asked in an awed tone.

"Yeah." Fumiko grinned. "I know you like butterflies and that it's kind of the Akimichi's entire thing, so I made some cold porcelain and did the etchings with an exacto knife."

"The... paint?"

"Oh yeah, I did that too. But that's no big deal. I paint all the time."

"Wow, I... I don't know what to..."

Fumiko smiled and used a sharp metal stick thing they used to handle the food and pushed a slowly overcooking one his way. Then nudged it again when he didn't seem to notice. "Here."

Choji smiled, then laughed. "Thanks!"

...

~ "No problem!" she called, waving as they turned to leave, scampering away to the next place. "Happy Halloween!" ~

...

"Ahh, isn't this the life?" Ino sighed.

Fumiko could only blow bubbles in agreement, mouth sinking under the hot spring water. Her, Ino, Sakura, and Tenten had all come down to the hot springs, mostly because Fumiko had never been to a hot spring before on the fact that if they had a hot spring in Suna it would boil you alive like an actual lobster, and they absoluely insisted she wouldn't survive the world without the experience.

It really was nice. Like liquid Suna.

Tenten stretched. "It's great for relaxing after training, you know? Forces your muscles to relax."

"And it's good for your skin," Ino added.

"I just think it feels good," Sakura said, sighing and leaning back against the wall.

Fumiko moved away from the seat, paddling about slowly so the water slid over her skin. She got a few strange looks, which was acceptable, considering that she was the only one doing it and technically they were in the reserved shinobi hot springs, so everyone was acting super serious. Sakura and Tenten and Ino just laughed good naturedly and splashed her when she got close.

...

~ As they left, Fumiko could see another kid outside, all on his lonesome. She couldn't really tell what they were, or even if it was a boy or a girl, in the darkness outside. Fumiko bit her lip, leaning forward, then yelped as she elbowed over the bowl. It clattered to the ground around her chair, tootsie rolls and Hershey's kisses rolling under the desk. ~

...

"All your stuff's already at the checkout area, so don't worry," Choji assured her. "Caravan should be here soon, but I thought we'd walk with you to the gates at least."

"Yeah," Ino said cheerfully at his side. "I know it's too early for Shikamaru to get up, but don't let him get you down!"

"No, that's fine," Fumiko said with a giggle. "Thank you, though."

"Speak for yourself. That lazy ass won't even talk to me," Mai grumbled, hands on her hilts, thumbs tucked into the belts as she walked on Fumiko's left. The other three from her party were at the gates, waiting for the escort. "I keep trying to tell him I'm not as spastic as I used to be, but he doesn't believe me."

Choji shrugged easily. "I know he's grateful you came and all. And Ino, he isn't sleeping. He's down at the archives doing intelligence with Sakura on this whole Pein thing. He would totally be here if he could."

Ino sighed. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Fumiko laughed. They weren't anywhere near the village gates yet, only just now passing by the Academy, but the Akimichi's home was on the far side of the village. It didn't matter, though. As much as she missed Gaara already she didn't necessarily want to leave. The longer they walked the longer she got to talk with Ino and Choji.

"Thanks for inviting me," she said.

"Thanks for coming! I know stuff's had to have been crazy for you, and you're in your second trimester now, right?"

"Yeah. It was really hard to convince Gaara to let me go, but I-"

She paused.

What had that been? A disturbance? Something like a... pulse. Like a... Satomi looked at her sadly, vanishing into blackness. A dead man with no head, spread all out across her roof and a clay bird in the sky.

"Fumiko?" That was Mai.

"Explosion," she muttered. "Somewhere..."

"What are you talking about? There wasn't an explosion." Choji blinked at her.

"Far away." Fumiko's eyes snapped around. "Something blew up far away. What was it? Mai-"

"I believe you." One of her swords slid halfway out of her right sheath. "Sorry, guys, but Fumiko's got this thing with... if she says something blew up something blew up. Are there any training fields nearby I don't know about?"

"Not where people would be blowing things u-"

There was a sudden bang, closer and much more violent than the little reverberations Fumiko had felt, enough to shake the ground. The spring in her prosthetic shrieked at the bouncing, and all in the air there were vibrations of it and she could smell smoke and fire-

Mai thumped her back. Fumiko flinched.

"What was that?" Ino exclaimed, whipping around to see what Fumiko was looking at, then stopped in her tracks.

Smoke. Chakra smoke. There was fire-smoke in the air, Fumiko could smell it and see it in the distance, but right in front of them- behind them, whatever- there was chakra-smoke, dark hazy grey. Like a summoning? "Mai-"

Choji gasped, a quick sharp intake of air.

Fumiko's eyes honed in on the giant centipede that curled out of the smoke, an enourmous black and orange thing that looked like a blown up halloween decoration that hissed and spat, writhing in the air. It was bigger than Shaapu, that was for sure, probably longer than the building shrouded in smoke that it was on, big enough to crush her like she was the bug.

"Shit!" Mai cringed slightly."What is that thing?"

"This is bad," Ino said shortly. "I'll go notify intel!"

Choji nodded and she turned to bolt back down the street away from the centipede bug, which hadn't seemed to notice them yet. He turned. "Mai, you should really get Fumiko somewhere safer than this."

"Where the hell is 'safe' in giant-ass-bug protocol, exactly?" she snapped, but took Fumiko's elbow. "Come on, we have to get inside. A basement or something. Is there an underground?"

"There's an evacuation area under the Hokage monument. Go! There'll already be shinobi there!"

"Right!" Mai tugged on her arm as she started to run. "Come on!"

"Wait, Choji-" Fumiko yelped but staggered along until she managed to fully upright herself and run like a normal human. Her brain spun. What was with the giant centipede? Was it the only threat? Had it caused the explosions, or was it the summoner?

The other people in the village were starting to run, too, people shoving past each other to get away from the centipedes- centipedes, plural- because there was another one as they turned from an alley. Everyone was heading in the same direction- away from the threats but towards the mountain rock faces. As they fled, more and more of the bugs broke out of the ground and the houses and shops along the road, shattering framework and sending concrete, brick and shattered glass raining into the air.

"Come on," Mai said again as they ran, pushing and shoving with the pulse of the crowd, raising her voice over theirs. "We'll get you to the evacuation area, then I'll go find Eishi and-"

Boom! There was another explosion that rocked the world, this one with fire. It was behind them, where they had started running from. Mai pressed in closer.

Everywhere they went, things were bursting into flames, buildings falling, people shoving. Those centipedes broke out of every available surface, taking people out from behind them and in front of them and all around them. Mai didn't stop, she didn't try to help those caught in the rubble, she didn't try to take out the bugs. She tried to keep away from the crowds of terrified villagers, turning into alleys and streetways and veering away from the biggest targets.

But it was hard for Fumiko to run. Awkward. Prosthetic aside. Mai was sort of supporting her as they went, heat searing their backs, barely managing to shunshin away from falling twisted scaffolding. It was too dangerous to roof-hop and Fumiko couldn't do it anyways.

They turned a corner and Mai skidded to a stop, gravel and dust kicking up under her feet as she whipped back around. Before she was pushed away Fumiko looked back, stunned, and saw the back of a man with orange hair, black cloak smattered with red clouds, staring at the destruction at his feet and an almost dead man inside it.

"Shit, shit, shit," Mai cursed, nearly stumbling in her attempt to escape unnoticed. "How many of them are there?"

Oh Kami, there were bodies everywhere already, and they hadn't been running for more than a few minutes. Akatsuki? How many? The real one's not among them. How many was them? Who were they? Pein.

"We're going the wrong way!" Fumiko cried. Now there was no one, somehow they'd either fallen behind or gotten ahead of everyone or maybe just taken enough crazy turns to get away from the parade of frightened villagers. There was this white hot fear that the Akatsuki they'd seen would have felt them or seen them and followed them and show up at any second. "The monument-"

"No choice!" Mai spun her out of the way as another explosion rocked the sky, decapitating the top of a building that came crashing down. Fumiko screamed, but Mai just put her hands together in a sign and puffed deep. "Fire style: Fire Piercing Annihilation!"

The flames that erupted were so intense that Mai bucked slightly, upper body jerked downwards, like she was playing a game of limbo. The searing fire curled and whipped in an almost ramrod straight line above her, cutting through the rocks and metal and flower pots and random debris until there was nothing left falling, staggered slightly, then took her wrist and kept on running.

"Fire Piercing Annihilation?" Fumiko gasped.

"Made it up awhile back." They jerked around a corner, Mai trying to circle back towards the monument. "Couldn't quite get the bigger one. Come on, move!"

They were reaching an intersection of rubble, the roads littered with the corpses of buildings and humans and pets alike, but before Fumiko could even protest trying to walk on the small mountain, a centipede erupted from the building just ahead of them to their right and kept right on going, smashing right through the building across the smaller road from it, before smashing back out and hissing right towards them.

"Back up! Go, go!" Mai pushed her but didn't follow, and Fumiko could hear the metallic ring as she drew her blades. The thing had seen them- and would probably run them down if they ran. It spat and lunged at her but she dodged, and it only cracked it's head into the ground beside her. The shrapnel almost lost her sister her balance, but Mai just shoved one her her blades down into the side of it's throat.

Or tried to. It clanged off like armor and the bug just got up again.

"Hello," a voice said to Fumiko's right as she stared, horrified, as her sister fought. Fumiko whipped all the way around and her blood chilled.

Akatsuki cloak. Akatsuki cloak. Akatsuki cloak.

It was a girl, a slim woman with bright orange hair. She was tall, and there were piercings all over her face that ran down both of her cheeks, and one on her nose, almost shrouded by the long bangs brushing her face. The rest of her hair was fastened up on top of her head in a way that vaguely reminded Fumiko of a cat despite her fear. The strangest thing about her, though, and possibly the scariest, were her deep swirling ringed purple eyes.

You've seen that before. You've seen that before. What is it?

"Go away!" she screamed like it would actually work, which it didn't, of course, the woman only tilting her head slightly. Behind her, she could hear Mai yelling for her to run, but run where? Akatsuki on one side, giant centipede on the other, buildings on both sides that weren't entirely smashed apart. Boxed in. Trapped.

She should have listened to Gaara, was her only wild thought. She could barely hear it over the pounding in her ears. She should've listened to Gaara and sent Choji his present in a sealing scroll, whether the paint got warped or not. Oh no. Oh no. Was this one of the ones that had killed Jiraiya? Her pulse flew all over the place.

If it was they were dead. They were still probably dead. Her and Mai and oh my Kami the babies.

"Tell me," the woman said in a perfectly calm tone of voice, like the centipede and her sister weren't making crashing-building screaming-yelling fight sounds just a handful of yards away. "Where is the nine-tails jinchuuriki?"

"What?" In her panic, she actually stopped to think about that. "U-Uzumaki Naruto?"

"Yes," the Akatsuki said impatiently. Rinnegan. It's a Rinnegan. Crap, crap, what's a Rinnegan do?

I can't remember.

"I d-don't know!" Mount Myoboku.

The Akatsuki narrowed her terrifying eyes. "Where is the nine-tails jinchuuriki?" she repeated, and took a step closer.

"Fire style: Fire Piercing Annihilation!" An unholy screech, probably the centipede getting hit, then a crash as it demolished a building on it's way down. "Fumiko, down!"

Fumiko went down, but the woman's eyes only flashed with annoyance.

There was another loud Hushhh of chakra-smoke that enveloped around the Akatsuki member as the woman crouched. Fumiko hadn't even seen her make any hand signs, but maybe she just hadn't been paying enough attention to her hands, she'd only been looking at her face, and her sister as she yelled, "Fire-"

Another centipede curled out of the grey smoke, shooting straight over Fumiko's head. She looked away from the Akatsuki for a split second to warn her sister, who was halfway through a hand sign, but when she turned back to glance the enemy's way she froze. Fear sweat and tears trickled down her cheeks as her eyes widened.

"Where," the woman said, now crouching just a few inches from her, face in her face, "is the nine-tails jinchuuriki?"

"I'll circle! I'll circle!" Mai screamed, voice fading. "Genjutsu!"

Circle? Fumiko's mind connected. Circle around the buildings. She would circle around the buildings to shake the centipede or at least get herself turned back around, then come through one of the buildings on the side to help. How she would help, Fumiko didn't know, but she did know that Genjutsu had saved her life before and that it worked on Akatsuki before.

She didn't put her hands together so as not to alert the Akatsuki, just stared into her circled Rinnegan eyes and planted her chakra behind them.

Or tried to.

Where was the system?

Where was the chakra?

She could feel it, sort of, but where was it? Fumiko's own chakra pushed through nothing but a corpse- no blood, no fluids, no nothing, dried up organs, what, what, where was the chakra what was going on the piercings the piercings the piercings, the piercings were connecting to each other inside of her, like marionette strings. They pulled and pushed to make her move, they were all over her body, not just her face.

"Wh-what a-are you?" Fumiko stuttered, backing up, still on the ground, scooting away, scrambling like a crab.

"I am Pein," she said. There was a sharp pain in Fumiko's scalp and suddenly she was being dragged off the ground by her hair, flailing, and then the back of her head hit something hard- wall- and thinking got really hard really fast. Fumiko gasped. She was so fast. So fast. Faster than Lee. Faster than anyone.

"Plea-" her voice cut off, hand on her throat, fingers against her larynx. She couldn't breathe.

"Those colors," Pein said calmly in a dead voice, glancing down at her shirt. It was so much worse because her voice was light and soft and almost sweet, like a child's. "You aren't from Konoha at all, are you? You know nothing."

Fumiko's fingers scrabbled against the brick wall against her back, sliding up, choking, to grab at the fingers. They didn't budge. The skin was cold. The Rinnegan. They were bodies. This was a corpse. This was a corpse being controlled by those piercings that held chakra. No, recieved it.

Genjutsu didn't work. This thing couldn't really see.

"Pu-ppet," she wheezed.

Her pack was useless, the prototype seals useless, she didn't even have blood to electrify. Her staff was with her things. She wouldnt have been able to get it now even if she'd had it on her. If she... she couldn't breathe. Fumiko's lungs burned. She writhed to no avail. Blood pulsed in her brain.

She was going to die.

"Ga-a-ra!" she screamed in stops and starts, without air. It wasn't loud enough. Terror squeezed through her throat despite the pressure. She could feel her heartbeat everywhere; in her neck and her belly and her legs and it was like her heart would burst before she even got the chance to die. Her blood pounded so fast and hard, it stained her vision red.

"Fumiko!" She couldn't tell who it was. "Let her go!"

"Gaa-ra!" She managed, and it was hazy enough that it didn't matter where he was, he could hear her, of course he could, he would, he always did. He would save her. Save them. Save her boys. Pain, pain, it hurt. "Gaa-"

Fumiko's vision suddenly twisted sharply horizontal to the left. She found herself staring at a red stitched cloud, suddenly numb, fear disconnected from adrenaline, pain from her body.

The world drained away like water.

...

~ She ducked under the desk to pick it up, sliding underneath her desk and scooping candy back into the big blue plastic bowl. Fumiko could hear light footsteps on the other side. She hurried to pick them all up, brushing invisible dust away. "Hold on just a second! I dropped the bowl!" ~

...

No. No. No.

Mai stopped dead in her tracks for so long that the centipede almost cut her in half, and then her muscles unfroze and she rolled.

No, no, no, no...

Her sister stopped. Instantly. Her legs slipped down to hang. Her arms fell. She could see Fumiko's eyes staring past the shoulder of the Akatsuki member, at the most unnatural angle possible. The cloak-nin stepped back and she dropped. Just dead. Slid down the wall and crumpled.

Please, Kami, no.

Stunned, she accidentally allowed the centipede to head-butt her through a wall.

Mai screamed as she broke through solid brick and cement, pain ringing in the back of her head and her arms and her legs and oh, Kami, her back, and her arm, finally smashing all the way through and then into a floor, through that, too; hardwood hashirama tree flooring splintering into her skin; and then more cement- a basement floor?- that only cracked around her like a crater.

She coughed up something warm. Her stomach. There was- the centipede. Mandible. A mandible. In her stomach. Shit.

"Ah- uck!" She coughed again. "Hahh... ahh...!"

It withdrew with a wet sound, slurping and sucking and squishy, one orange mandible stained with red in her now blurry vision. She pawed weakly at the wound with one hand, fingers of her right hand touching something spongy and wet; her left arm failed her. Broken. Or gone? She couldn't tell. Mai let her other hand slide back to the cracked apart concrete floor.

It left. Just. Left her there in the basement that had a brand new skylight. It probably thought she was dead now, slithering away, crumbling rocks in it's wake until it was gone. Ha. Stupid bug. She hated bugs. Crap. It hurt. She hurt. It was like she'd set herself on fire. Fumiko, no, oh Kami, no, no...

She tried to scream and only managed a gurgle. Clouds and smoke passed far above her head. She watched it, eyes roving for purchase; the sun burned spots in her retinas, warmth pooled around her torso and her arm that she could feel. Her ears rang, but she was pretty sure the vibrations were more explosions nearby. Flare, flare, flare. In her bag. It was under her.

She rolled over and almost choked on her own tongue not only at the sear in her entire stomach- torso- her body but in the ripping, tearing sensation in her arm. Her vision went black with it. Not gone. Just broken, then, yeah, just really, really broken, she could deal with that. Yeah. Yes. Flare.

Slowly she let her right arm slip upwards until it was straight, like she was stretching her arm above her head lying down, then bent it a the elbow, panting, slavering like a dog. This place was unstable. The whole building could crash in on her right now. How much time had passed? Quick breaths, she reminded herself, quick, shallow breaths.

Her fingertips touched fabric. She was almost surprised she could still feel that.

Mai tugged at it, biting her tongue so hard that blood nearly poured out through her lips to the concrete. Her brow creased with concentration. Don't pass out. Don't pass out. You can't help your sister if you pass out.

She whimpered. Probably for the first time since she was nine.

Her fingers closed around the flare. She let her arm flop back above her head, fingers clenched. Any chakra left? Yeah, some. She couldn't exactly cover her ears. She let chakra seep out of her palm. The flare looked kind of like a stick of dynamite, but it acted like a firework, a big, Sunagakure-issued SOS Fucking-help-me bright damn red firework.

It exploded upward, heat singeing her hand and her arm and her face.

Now wait. "Uhh." Was she dying? Nah. No. Had this been how Squirrel-taicho had died? All alone bleeding out? No. Logically she knew that, she wasn't so far out enough as to not remember he'd been blown up. Or had he? Yura might have stabbed him. Though, probably not this deep.

Never mind. She was far enough gone. She couldn't remember her name. Something about humanity.

It was a long time, or maybe only a few minutes, that she waited, but then all of a sudden someone was there, all at once. She hadn't even heard them slide down the rubble. That meant the Akatsuki was gone. Good. She blew out a breath. At least she hadn't led some poor loser into a trap.

"Mai! Oh, Kami."

Shit. Eishi. Of all the...

Mai hissed as he flipped her over. Screw if he was being gentle, it hurt, goddammit.

There was his face, his stupid pink hair. At least he wasn't dead. Mai was surprised at the rush of relief there. Yeah. She didn't want him to die. Would really prefer him not to. His forehead protector was marred, the top left corner of it almost looking like it would fall off, the scratch was that deep. Was he actually wearing that on his head and not his waist? Huh.

"Ei-" she coughed. "Sheee..."

He looked panicked. Hah, loser cared about her too.

"Oh, Kami, oh, hell, what do I do?" Was that idiot asking her? She had a hole in her stomach! "Can you move?"

"D-d-does-ss it l-lo-ook like I-I-I-"

"Shh. Shut up. Don't be Mai right now. Stop talking." he babbled. "Oh, Kami. I need a medic. You need a medic. This is crazy. Help! Help! Crap. Mai, I'll be right back, okay? I'm gonna go find someone to help."

"D-don-n't you d-d-da-are-"

She tried to reach for him with her broken arm on accident, filled with some sudden need not to be alone, hissing. Of course she wasn't going to die. She was fine. She was fine. That didn't mean she wanted to be alone. Even if she wasn't going to die.

"I'll be right back," he repeated, and then he was gone.

Bastard.

But then it was like she blinked and he was back, dropping something on her stomach.

She glared at him. Ow!

"The damage is extensive," someone said from on her stomach in a light, slightly wheezy voice, scaring the absolute hell out of her, but when she managed to pull her head up enough to eyeball it, she realized it was a slug. "I'll need more of me."

"Right," Eishi said and left again.

Something cool melted through her, numbing everything it touched. Mai recognized this feeling.

Healing jutsu.

...

~ "Oh- okay," a boy tittered almost nervously, like he was embarrassed. ~

...

"Gaara, calm down, what's wrong?" Temari muttered almost angrily. "Stop storming around. Where are you going?"

"Konoha."

"But why?"

Because there was pain and there was fear and there was something like a little bit of death. And Gaara knew exactly what death felt like. He narrowed his eyes, pressed his lips together, and made to shove his sister out of his way.

"Kazekage-sama!" a familiar voice cried. Footsteps pattered through the hall. One ANBU and a runner, that's the voice he recognized. From the aviary. Dully, Gaara noted that he held both a scroll with a broken highest-level emergency seal and a translated sheet. "Lord Gaara, urgent news!"

"What? What is it?" Temari exclaimed, whipping about.

"The Hidden Leaf are under attack!"

...

~ Fumiko grabbed the last piece and straightened. "I'm so sorry, I'll give you-... you..." She blinked at his costume. A smile creeped across her face, uncontrollable. "No way." ~

...

Eishi had never seen anything quite like this.

The hole in his teammate was bigger than his head, bleeding and bloody and ragged, and he could see parts of her stomach through it, Kami, he could see stomach acid and chunks of what had used to be food. And her arm- her arm was twisted nearly backwards. The humerus bone jabbed almost an inch through her skin like it was paper, bloody as well. She was covered in serious gashes and scrapes. She probably had broken ribs, too.

And she'd managed to set off a flare that'd been in her backpack that she was originally lying on. And she was still conscious, glaring at him like everything was his fault, but that was normal.

As three Katsuyu slugs worked on her stomach- the most pressing and lethal of her injuries- the color slowly began to return to her face. Mai was washed in green-blue healing light, but she was sweating, biting her bloody mouth where she had nearly bit her tongue in half, and every once in a while she gasped out a swear word.

He just held her uninjured hand- uh, relatively uninjured hand- and rambled about how Shiragiku was working in the hospital, and that as soon as she was healed enough to move they would take her there, and how everything was going to be fine.

"B-baka," she muttered through clenched teeth. "I'm n-n-not duh-dy-ing."

At this point, Eishi wasn't even sure if she was human at all. He'd doubted it before, but now he really just didn't know.

"I know, Mai. We're gonna fix you all up. Then you can kick some Akatsuki ass, right, yeah, the bastards are everywhere, and you could totally take them, Mai, with your swords and fire and all, you should've seen me take down one of those centipedes-"

"S-stupid b-bu-ugs."

"I know." One strange thing about Mai that he'd learned to pretend to have forgotten the one time he thought it was smart to put creepy crawlies in her sleeping bag: she really, really hated bugs. She was deathly afraid of spiders, but she hated bugs in general. "They suck."

"Y-you k-k-kill it, p-pans-sy ass?"

"Yeah. I cut it's head off with wind style."

"H-head..." Her eyes lost focus for a second, then sharpened. "F-fumi-Fum-miko!"

"What about Fumiko?" Crap, where was his teammate's sister? He should've thought about it earlier. They were supposed to be guarding her. Mai's fingers clenched and Eishi winced, letting his go lose to avoid snapping. "What happened?"

"F-fu-fucki-ing A-a-kats-katsuki buh-b-broke her... h-her..."

"Oh, crap," he murmured. "Oh, Kami, oh, no."

"Ei-eish-shi," she snapped. "D-don-n't l-lose it, G-g-gen-in."

"Right, I know. Not losing it, I swear," he promised, but really he wanted to puke. He'd knocked people unconscious before, and killed animals and stuff, but nothing had prepared him for this- seeing people fall under toppling pieces and chunks of buildings, running, ripped apart by those centipedes, apparently breaking necks.

"Ei-shi, go f-find my n-nee-chan."

Never in her life had he heard Mai use any honorific aside from sama and sensei. Unless she sarcastically called some asshole kun or chan that was above her ranking. "Okay, Mai. Okay. I'll go find your nee-chan."

"It will be a while before the stomach knits back together," one of the Katsuyus said in it's whispery voice. "Ten minutes, perhaps more."

Eishi nodded. "Right. Have you found Fumiko yet? Shorter girl with brown hair. She's pregnant. Probably close by."

"My Katsuyu have found someone fitting that description," the slug passed on. "Across the street from this building. But she is dead."

Eishi cursed and whipped his eyes back down, but Mai had fallen unconscious, face twisted painfully. Thank Kami. If she'd been awake all hell would break loose trying to keep her down, gaping stomach hole and snapped in half arm or not.

"The children are not," Katsuyu continued. "My Katsuyu are attempting to use chakra to simulate natural body functions. I do not know how long that will last, though. I am sorry."

"Right." Eishi swallowed. The Kazekage...

In the distance, something howled, something big enough to reverberate the air. Like a werewolf. Eishi ignored it. Just stared at Mai's pained face, eyes twitching rapidly beneath their lids.

He'd been teased for liking her before. It was one of he reasons he'd used to... used to bully her. To prove them wrong. And it was wrong. Well, it hadn't been wrong for a few months after she'd been dared to kiss him, but now, it was wrong. He didn't like her. Not that way at least. But Mai was his teammate. She'd saved his life before.

Eishi was a spoiled rotten only child, but sometimes, with Mai, it felt like he had one of those crazy older sisters his friends had always complained about. Or at least a friend. A cold one, sure, but a friend, even if she just told him to fix his problem rather than taking the time to actually listen to it. He didn't really know what went through her head on a regular basis, but they were still... friends.

Horrible friends. Unlikely. A bad match. But. Still.

He'd seen her flare and his heart had jumped into his throat. When he finally managed to reach her, Mai had been facedown in the dirt, one arm mangled and the other stretched out above her head, open fingers half-holding a used flare shell. The mandible thing hadn't gone all the way through her, so all he'd seen was her back and the rapidly growing pool of blood around her person.

He'd thought she was dead, and rolled her over.

And she'd tried to cuss him out, blood in her throat or no.

Thank Kami.

The ground still vibrated. It was like the entire village was shaking, and in the distance there were sounds of crashing things, more falling buildings. Eishi eyed the torn ceiling of the two story building above them warily. His brow furrowed. If that collapsed on them now...

He glanced back down and touched the back of his hand to Mai's forehead. She was burning. "Lady Katsuyu, how much longer until we can move her?"

"I cannot be certain. It all depends on her."

By now her stomach was healed all the way through. From what Eishi could tell, the slugs were doing different jobs, one slowly healing her outside skin tissue, another vaporizing excess blood and minor inner injuries that remained. The third one, well, he didn't know, maybe it was just giving her energy or disinfecting everything? Could you even do that with medical ninjutsu?

He nodded. "Soon, then. Is there anything I can do?"

"Do you know how to set bones?" she asked softly. "My Katsuyu can only heal injuries. We cannot mend the bone until it is set together."

"Huh?" Eishi grimaced, eyes flickering distastefully to her bleeding busted arm. "You know, she'll probably try to kill me if she wakes up. Is... is there any way to keep her out?"

"Yes. I will take care of that."

"Oh- Okay." Mai's hand had long since gone slack, so he shook out of it- wincing as the bones in his hands shifted and creaked- and crawled over to her other side. He was a little cut up himself; he'd been thrown into a couple of things and more or less rode a giant centipede like a horse. But that was nothing compared to Mai's arm alone, let alone the rest of her.

Right. Okay. First aid. First... what was first for a broken humerus bone? Right. Staunch the bleeding, if there was any. He shrugged out of his torn half sleeved crop top and pulled one of his dual steel-enforced bladed hand fans from the holster on his thigh and flicked it open, slicing the jacket in half. The Suna hourglass on the back was already torn in half from a centipede or maybe shrapnel, so it wasn't that horrible.

It didn't matter. He had more at home in his closet, if it wasn't destroyed. He pressed one half against her arm. When the bleeding stopped, he could use the other part to splint it. Fingers still pressed to the steadily dampening fabric, he glanced around for something- anything- to use. There were pieces of wood and metal everywhere.

There- a busted up mostly straight piece of a two-by-four. He sat hard and reached out with his foot to pull it closer.

The bleeding was slowing down. Somewhat. Barely. Kami. He could feel the bone underneath his jacket. If he wanted the bleeding to stop he would have to get that back in. Which he'd never done before. But he knew how to. In theory.

If he did it wrong and it healed bunk she would kill him. No pressure.

What seemed like just across the street, something exploded. There was a deep, consuming rumble as a building collapsed nearby. Eishi flinched, shoulders drawing together. He clenched his jaw and set his teammate's arm. It did so with a sliding, crunching wet sound that made his spine shiver, but Mai didn't make a sound. Her head lolled.

There. Close enough.

He held the jacket to her skin a little longer until the flow really did start to ebb, then held the thick stick of wood to the non-punctured area and tied it tight enough that her arm wouldn't move again until Katsuyu could get to it. He could use the jacket from the splint as a sling later if Katsuyu managed to heal it again.

Something else exploded nearby.

He needed to get Mai's sister's body before it got crushed. And according to Katsuyu, her babies were still alive.

He straightened, then stood, picking up his cast aside giant folding fan and sticking it against his back. Praying there would be no Akatsuki above, he jumped up onto the mountain of rubble from the part of the building Mai had collapsed somehow, then again to ground level, then dashed out the building onto the street.

Okay. Giant dog. Ignore the giant multi-headed dog, it was far enough away not to bother them anyway.

He dashed across the demolished road, coughing, eyes stinging as he pushed debris away, darting from building to building across the street, searching along the entirety of the road, ducking down during the occasional explosion. "Lady Katsuyu!" he called as he searched. "Lady Katsuyu, where are you?"

After a few more minutes, he heard it- a faint voice. "Over here, Eishi."

Okay. It knew his name. Eishi shook himself, then bolted to where the noise had come from, pushing aside a plank of wood and a metal she'd actually ended up being sheltered by rather than crushed.

"Ah," he breathed sharply at the sideways angle of Fumiko's face. His heart stuttered.

...

~ He was wearing some kind of red tunic fastened with a cut up, very familiar-looking grey vest detailed with black marker and tied on with ribbons. The tunic was way too big for him- probably on purpose- so that the hem hung down by his ankles, not quite covering his long baggy black pants tied here and there with white ribbon. ~

...

Water. Smooth, liquid water. Or, not water, but she couldn't taste it.

Fumiko opened her eyes slowly. The tangible liquid touched her eyes but didn't burn or sting. It was just cold. Cold, and kind of dark, an off kind of soft black that was almost like blue. She straightened, and it was like she floated upward.

Glass. No, the top of the water. She blinked at herself, and then Gaara and Mai and the Sand Siblings and her parents, both of them. And then they were gone, and she fell backwards again, feeling the smooth bypass of the airy inky darkness as it rippled through her shirt. Her white shirt. That wasn't showing.

She thought, where am I? And as she did, the ground solidified under her feet above her like she was standing on the ceiling. The world turned upright again, and the blue-darkness turned into ordinary-darkness. She took a step, felt herself pulling out of the liquid, and it drained out of her eyes and her mouth and off her skin. Her lungs cleared. She breathed.

Fumiko blinked. She saw a woman, a vaguely familiar woman, with mousy brown hair cut short to just barely her shoulders. From what she could see of her back, she wore traditional Sunagakure clothing.

"Hello?" Her voice rang like a dropped bell in the dead silence. She couldn't hear her own heartbeat.

The woman turned. Blue eyes flashed with surprise. Then she smiled, and was gone, fading back into total darkness once again.

"Oh..." Fumiko turned around, but the water she'd stepped out of was gone, leaving only more blackness. The ground made no sounds as she scuffed despite her prosthetic, which didn't push or hurt at all. Her turn was smooth, like she was still floating. "Hello?" she asked again.

"Hello."

Fumiko startled and turned back around to see the friendly flicker of a lantern and a wooden bench, like the kind you would see in parks. The ground just below it was illuminated; almost bare, dry soil studded here and there with rocks. "Oh. Hi."

The man on the bench smiled, putting the lantern on the seat and waving her over. His face was ordinary, a little gaunt, with a widow's peak and an almost kind of flat nose. Black hair, a little stubble on his chin. He had a powerful build under his clothes, but wasn't any bigger than Otokaze. "Come sit down with me."

...

~ He wore a floppy red wig, brown hair poking out from underneath it. The kid's eyes were rimmed with black, probably his mother's or somebody's eyeliner, and when he reached up to push the wig back into place, he exposed a red nail polish Ai kanji. ~

...

Kami... was she actually dead? It didn't seem possible. Why wasn't she smiling? Or laughing? It was unnerving. There were dirty tear tracks down both sides of her face, long since dried. A single Katsuyu throbbed on her stomach, alight with a green glow. Eishi couldn't figure out how these slugs were healing, but he was glad. Oh, man, poor Gaara-sama.

He would be destroyed. And Eishi knew that. Mai would be as well.

"Crap," he muttered, kneeling and elbowing away tears only just now starting to show themselves. "Gotta... gotta save them. Katsuyu?"

"Still alive," the slug said. "Although I don't know how long this will work on chakra alone."

"R-right." The crack in his voice made him cringe, but he leaned forward and carefully put his arms beneath her shoulders and knees. He couldn't see her prosthetic anywhere, just a milky white, transparent rubber-esque sock on her stump, so he left it be and just picked her up.

"I'm going... going to take you to Mai," he said quietly. He was nuts for talking to a corpse. Kami. He was holding a corpse. He swallowed bile. Fumiko had been his friend. Or at least, she'd wanted to be his friend, and was happy and friendly and cheerful all the time... nice, curious. All of the things Mai usually wasn't, except maybe for the curiosity. "Okay?"

Her hair draped down long into the air. It had been almost to her waist in... in life.

He made his way back to the building's basement, careful not to nudge about Katsuyu, but trying to drown his quick, jerking sobs before they could escape his throat. It only worked half the time.

Once inside, ignoring the sounds of crashing buildings somewhere in the village, Eishi carefully set her down next to her sister.

Stunned. That's how he would describe the look on her face. Stunned, with a little bit of fear in the set of her mouth. Her eyes were wide. Should he snap her head back in place? Was it right? He didn't want to mess it up. But... Eishi glanced down at her stomach, her finally definitely showing, second-trimester stomach, where Katsuyu was hard at work.

Dead at barely sixteen, and she wasn't even a shinobi.

All of a sudden, despite their position inside the partially collapsed building's basement, it got really, really bright, light shining through the huge wall gap, pure white light like summer at noon in Sunagakure. Eishi squinted. What...

There was an explosion like the end of the world.

...

~ The most noticeable thing, of course, was the painted paper mache gourd fixed to his back. He was blushing, green eyes flickering about, scratching his cheek. "Hi," he muttered. "Please don't laugh at me." ~

...

The man put a comforting hand on her shoulder while she cried.

It made sense now. The lack of sensation. The lack of white noise, and heat from the lamp, and grain from the bench's wood. Her clothes. Her size.

She was dead.

She was really, truly dead.

This wasn't exactly the afterlife, nor was it staying behind. She was in the middle, ready to move on if she wanted to, free to stay in purgatory if she so chose. That was why it was so black, the man, who had introduced himself as Yami, explained. He knew, somehow, inside, that to move on was to go into the light.

"I can't leave." Despite her tears, Fumiko's voice was always crystal clear, without stutters. "I can't leave them."

"Can't leave who?" Yami shook his head. "You are dead and they are alive. It's just the way of things. You've already left them."

Somehow, that didn't help. "He told me not to go."

"Who told you?" Yami paused for a few long seconds. "What happened to you, Fumiko-chan?"

"How do you know my name?" She glanced up, then blinked, almost stunned out of her grief by the sudden blurriness of Yami's face. His expression was suddenly just gone, a blank pale slate contrasting his tanned skin. "What-"

"Sorry." His face merged back to normal. "That happens sometimes. I forget. And I know you, because your sister was my student."

"Your student?"

They were sitting in her bedroom. Not Mai's- their father had the uncanny ability to pick bad times for fights, and more likely than not Fumiko would accidentally say something, so she didn't really want to go to her house yet. No, they were in her and Gaara's bedroom. Mai was very poignantly not sitting on the bed, which had at some point been stripped and new sheets and blankets- or maybe they were the same ones just washed, she couldn't tell- and was insteaad perched on Gaara's spinny work chair facing backward.

"Who taught you fire release?" Fumiko thought aloud.

"My t- my sensei," Mai said smoothly, and Fumiko thought that she must've missed something important because-

"Otokaze hasn't taught you nature releases," she said. "I asked him about it before you left. He wasn't planning on trying to even identify your natures until the chuunin exams."

Taicho.

Mai's taicho.

Mai's taicho.

"ANBU," Fumiko said, sniffing and wiping tears off her face. "You were Mai's ANBU teacher. You died, didn't you? In the invasion that killed Gaara. That's why Mai was so... and why she started training so hard and... why... she's..."

Scared.

Yami's brows creased. "The Kazekage was killed?"

"You don't know?"

"I can't see the world from here." His sad smile turned sheepish. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"Oh. Well." She thumbed at her eyes again. "Yeah. Gaara, he died. But Chiyo-baa-sama brought him back to life with the Puppet Reanimation jutsu, with mine and Uzumaki Naruto's help. Sugar. This makes so much... so much sense." Fumiko closed her eyes. "Mai..."

"How's she doing? My student, I mean."

"I don't know. But..." Fumiko sniffled again. "She's not... dead. She would've found me."

"Why? What's happening?"

"Akatsuki. We were fighting an Akatsuki, and... I think she..." That sharp horizontal suddenly made sense. "Our plan didn't work. I think the Akatsuki broke my neck. Oh, Kami. I left her. She's still down there with that Akatsuki. There were so many of them- and Gaara- and-" Panic stole through her. "And my boys."

"Your boys?"

"I was pregnant. With twins. With Gaara." She started to cry again against her own volition. "And he told me not to go because the Akatsuki were still all over the place, and I, Kami, I just guilted him into letting me go to Choji's party and I went and died and killed my boys and now Mai and Eishi and Shiragiku and Otokaze are all there..."

"With the Kazekage, huh?" He rubbed her back. Fumiko felt it and didn't at the same time- it was more like she felt his intent, and remembered being patted on the shoulder or having her back rubbed. Gaara. Gaara had done that. She could almost feel his cool warmth. It was so much easier to imagine here, without white noise and distractions, to give yourself ghosts. "Well, I can tell you, they aren't dead."

Fumiko flinched, hands almost to her face. "What? How?"

Yami shrugged. "Well, it's not like I'm an expert on purgatory, but I would think they'd come to you. And they're not here. Maybe somebody's making your body operate."

"But I'm dead."

"Your soul being gone and your body operating are two very different things." He sighed. "I'm sorry if I'm being insensitive, but can you tell me what happened? My student's much too stubborn to die, so I won't be talking to her for a long, long time." He grimaced. "I hope. If she's not stupid."

"Right. I understand." Fumiko touched her stomach. "Where should I..."

She'd left Gaara alone, alone with his family. She'd left him. Just like he'd left her. On accident. She hadn't meant to do it, but she had. Now, she remembered trying to scream for him, like he would hear her and play hero like he always had. She'd just been delirious with lack of oxygen, but now it just made her feel worse. Probably the last thing Mai had ever heard from her was a barely lucid desperate cry for help.

But. But maybe not. Maybe, if whoever was keeping her... her body... alive, then maybe Gaara wouldn't be so alone.

"Start with Akatsuki's invasion of Suna. When I died." His eyes squinted. "And please do explain why Captain Yura killed me."

...

~ Fumiko blinked. then she blinked again. Then handed him down the bowl. "We have more," she said at his look of shock. "Stay right there, don't move! I'll be right back!" ~

...

When Mai finally awoke, her arm was sending spazzy torture signals to stab her brain and she was covered in sticky.

Sticky what, she wasn't sure exactly, but everything was moving, like she was trapped in a rolling rice ball, which was probably one of the weirdest ways she'd woken up ever. There were also muffled bangs and roaring like a sandstorm dragging an entire shop down the street.

Her torso still hurt like hell, but it wasn't like I-can-feel-blood-filling-up-my-intestines pain, instead more like I-got-stabbed-and-I'm-waking-up-in-the-hospital pain. Those weird slugs hadn't exactly sealed her up, but she wasn't bleeding grapefruit anymore.

The world stopped spinning. It was quiet for a second, during which Mai held her breath and kept her eyes closed, not really wanting to find out if whatever she was stuck in would stuff up her throat if she tried to speak.

The stickiness pulled apart, spilling her out onto something hard.

She coughed, scrabbling to push herself up with one arm, the other strangely stiff. Mai peeled her eyes open, still hacking for air, feeling like on top of everything else, she'd just gone through a blender set to puree.

She froze.

"What the h-h-hell..."

The building was gone. The basement was gone. Damn, the street, the neighborhood, the block, the subdivision, the entire goddamn village was gone, and she was pushed up along the edge of it against the wall surrounded by twisted wreckage, ruined statues, killer hunks of rock, cement, metal, and plastic. There were small fires everywhere. The air smelled like smoke.

Everything that wasn't the quarter mile in from the wall was nothing. Just stone and dust. Not even foundation. It was just a crater, one big crater with a deeper crater in the middle, an entire village reduced to absolutely nothing.

Was this... Akatsuki?

Nearby, someone else coughed. Not quite deep, prickling with a roughness just this side of puberty.

Everything came rushing back. Well, everything had already come back, but now her brain finally caught up, like, oh, yeah, where's everyone else, and what was so goddamn sticky?

She turned, wincing, more rolling onto her back so she could sit up on her butt and ignore the fire in her stomach. "E-eishi," she called, for the moment at least temporarily ignoring the giant blue and white version of the slugs that had healed her a few feet behind hwere she was sitting. Must've been the sticky.

A few yards to her right, another slug was depositing her Genin teammate on the dirt. Now she recognized that the hard thing she'd been dropped on was a twisted, instant-cooled yet previously melted sheet of metal. Shit. What the hell had blown up here, a nuke?

She hobbled towards him, hands and knees, wincing.

"Mai, please don't move around right now," the giant slug that'd somehow protected her and not been obliterated. "You aren't fully-"

"Ah, I'm fine!" She didn't exactly want to tell her savior to piss off. "Is Eishi-"

"He is okay," the other slug answered. As she said this, Eishi glanced up, back of his hand to his mouth. He still had on his folding fan, but he was missing his ever-present jacket. He looked strange with just his blue t-shirt. "We managed to get you all in time."

A third slug, bigger than the other two, was behind her, closer to the wall and trapped underneath a few wooden beams. It didn't open, or spill anything out, but there had to be- someone in it. Oh, hell. No.

"Mai," Eishi coughed. "You woke up."

"No, Eishi, I didn't wake up, I'm perfectly capable of sleeping through a village exploding with me in it!"

"And you're okay. Even better." He sighed, then cringed as he straightened all the way. "Ahh. I think I busted a rib."

"Fumiko," Mai said. "Ow. Ow. Ow. Fucking hell. It's bleeding. I thought you fixed me?" Mai touched her stomach, where blood piddled through a still perfectly open giant gaping wound. She scowled. "Did the town blow up before you could put a bandage on it?"

"For your information, it blew up after Katsuyu closed your stomach and liver." Eishi made a face. Only then did Mai realize that his hands were drenched in blood up to his wrists. Her blood? That was weird enough that she didn't want to think about it, but then she did think about it and looked down at her arm, which, she realized, was splinted with his jacket and a piece of wood.

"You splinted my arm?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Explains why it hurts so much."

"Hey, I found you in the middle of a street that kept blowing up and I was nice enough to get Katsuyu and hold your hand-"

"Which I hope I broke, did I?"

"No."

"Damn." Mai shook her head. "What happened? Where's Fumiko?"

"Fumiko... you already know, don't make me say it."

"Pansy ass," she said, but it was a murmur. Oh... Just, oh. Nothing else. No curse word popped to mind. No nothing popped to mind. Oh. Oh. Oh. Something curled up and died, right there, something she thought already had. To her absolute horror, she could feel wetness on her face that wasn't blood. Her voice went husky. "Yeah. I know. I know."

"But-"

"But what?" Don't scream. "A dead person's a dead person."

"Let me finish. I was going to say, but, Katsuyu is trying to keep her body alive."

"Why?"

He scowled. "Figure it out."

A beat went by. Then another. Mai pawed at the tears on her face with her wrist. "Oh, Kami," she said suddenly as she realized. "The..." she was almost afraid to ask, afraid to get shot down. "The... twins?"

"Yeah." Eishi stood, squinted at the middle, where something was happening, but there was still too much smoke to tell. Where it had come from, Mai didn't know. "I'm gonna go find Shiragiku and sensei."

"Leaving me alone, Eishi?"

Her voice hitched slightly and she almost wanted to slap a hand over her mouth. Even her tongue was healed, although she could still feel the lumpy, thicker-than-the-rest-of-it bulge where the slugs had stopped caring in favor of bigger things.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Would you rather me stay?"

"Piss off."

And he did, nodding, before jumping off.

Please don't let them be dead. Please don't let them be dead. You're one hell of a loser, Kami.

Hell, she could remember it now, the most bloodless death she'd ever seen, the simplest, the most cruel. Mai would never, never forget, never, the way her sister screamed for Gaara, voice dying without air, while her knight in Sand Armor was clueless three days away in another Land entirely. She wouldn't tell Gaara about that, she wouldn't, he would never forgive himself for not being there.

Ever.

And she didn't want anyone other than herself going through that.

Slugs weren't people. It was just a summon, anyway. Mai pretended that Eishi wasn't close enough to hear her still, she pretended that there was no one else nearby despite the chakra she could sense, she pretended that the Summon's freaky stalk eyes couldn't actually see her.

She dug her fingers in the dusty layer cover of the metal sheet and watched it darken. Then she screamed for a long, long time.

...

 

~ She darted out from behind the desk and to the stairs, yelling "Don't move!" to the stunned mini-Gaara in the lobby, then raced up them as quickly as she could, leaning against the handrail for balance. ~

...

"So she's still training, huh," he sighed.

"Yeah." Fumiko hugged her knees to her chest, staring at the flicker of the fake, imaginary flames in the lantern.

"She was a real brat." He smiled without humor. "But she always blamed herself for everything, a real piece of work."

"Yeah." Tears disappeared before they reached the bench, although they stayed on her knees and in her clothes. The darkness ate them up just as much as the light. "She was. I can't see them... ever?"

"Not until they die." His voice was soft. "It's a delicate balance, hoping to see your loved ones and wanting them to stay away."

She could hear the sadness in his voice. He'd been completely, utterly alone with nothing but a mental lantern to stave away the darkness, lonely ever since the day Sunagakure was attacked. "Who are you waiting for?"

"Believe it or not?" His smile was wry. "My student. And my cat."

"You live alone?"

"Completely, except for my cat. Well, lived. I'm sure my neighbor took her in."

"I had a big family. My mom. Mai. My dad, too... I guess." Fumiko shifted to let her chin sink into her arms. It was easier to balance her prosthetic. Easier than ever. "I lived in the Tower, with Gaara and Temari and Kankuro and all of the servants. And Mai always came up to bug Kankuro. I cooked dinner all the time. I promised-" her clear voice finally cut off. "I promised to help Gaara organize his desk when I..."

"Nothing to be done about it now."

She let her eyes flick to him without moving. She couldn't bring herself to move. "What would you say?"

"I'm sorry?"

"To Mai. If she were here."

"What would I say? Thank Kami you didn't stay behind and join our watch squad? Yura in that state would have slaughtered her, probably first, knowing Mai." Yami's shoulders hunched. "I don't know. I suppose not to take our squadron's death too hard. To let herself be allowed to be the only one who lived. Too late now. Sorry, I'm not that eloquent. I'm ANBU."

"No." Fumiko looked back into the darkness. She'd already forgotten how long she'd been here. Long enough to tell a story long enough to last for hours. Mai wasn't dead. She must've escaped, then. "Keep talking. What would you tell Mai?"

...

~ Fumiko swung open the door to Gaara's office, startling him enough that he dropped his brush, eyes flickering to her. To her delight he wasn't wearing his uniform, but his fighting-clothes. Once again, work had sidetracked him. "Fumiko, what-" ~

...

What was she going to tell Gaara?

No, she couldn't. She wouldn't. She refused.

Gaara had trusted her to protect her sister, and Mai had only managed to nearly kill herself. Even if the twins survived- and that was a weight off her shoulders, Kami, her nieces- Gaara would be destroyed. If the way Fumiko reacted during his death was any indication of what to come, considering the fact that her sister wasn't even inclined to taking emotional things hard...

Mai wasn't crying any more. She was still spitting blood, and now the Katsuyu who'd saved her had separated again to continue healing her stomach, albeit a lot slower now that she wasn't using her summoner's chakra, whoever that was, but she wasn't crying.

She had herself leaned up against Fumiko's Katsuyu. Well her head and shoulders were leaned up against the slug, she had to lie down for the most part since there were two Katsuyu slugs on her stomach and one curled around Eishi's makeshift splint.

Since the dead girl didn't need to breathe, and apparently chakra could simulate oxygen in the blood somehow, the Kastsuyu had deemed it better to keep the body inside her, to make it easier to maintain bodily functions. It also protected her body from anything else that could happen.

Creepy as hell, keeping a dead girl alive...

"Mai-chan!"

Mai started, then craned her neck to see Shiragiku and Eishi picking through the mess back towards them. Where was her sensei? Oh, hell.

She found herself, despite everything and her mourning and the deadness in everything that at least was one thing that still worked, worrying about everyone, including the Leaf ninja. What had happened to everyone? Kiba? Lee? Shikamaru? Hinata, that bug kid Shino? Sakura and Ino and everyone else, where were they?

"Shiragiku! Eishi!" she hollered. "You find Otokaze-sensei yet?"

She grimaced, then spat. Her throat still tasted like iron. Wiping her mouth with her good, slugless hand, she made sure to swipe at her face just in case there were any dirty tear tracks to cover them with blood. Eishi, being Eishi, tripped and almost fell on his face, then got back up with Shiragiku's help.

"He's helping some of the others," Shiragiku called. His voice wasn't loud, but somehow it carried. "A mile or so around the wall."

"Oh, thank..." Mai caught herself.

Breathe. In, out, pause. Mind over matter. In life or death, high-intensity missions where everyone's dead but you, you can't puke- which she'd already done and covered with a chunk of rock- you can't have a meltdown- too late, and if they asked her eyes looked weird because the village blew up and there was dust and smoke everywhere- and you can't let emotional turmoil jeopardize a mission.

She already knew that Naruto was down there, borne from that swathe of smoke. Katsuyu had instructed that no one interfere. Not that she could. If someone poked her right now she would probably pass out from pain.

Eishi and Shiragiku exchanged looks as they finally reached her. "Mai-chan, are you alright?"

"What, Eishi didn't t-tell you I bus-sted open my stomach?" She scowled. "Stupid blood in my th-throat."

Shiragiku laughed. It sent a pang through her- the hell was he laughing for? Just trying to make you feel better, she told herself to keep from glaring at the soft-spoken boy. Or he doesn't... doesn't know. "I see. You certainly are something."

"Yeah, yeah. What's going on down th-there?" She couldn't exactly look, lying in the dirt with football sized slugs suckling all over her. The only thing she'd noticed thus far was a giant toad that had happened to jump up past the edge of the crater, tussling with a giant dog. Which wasn't much to go on. "Can't see."

"Naruto is fighting the Preta Path."

Well. She hadn't actually thought to ask the slug to elaborate. "Preta path? What's a Preta path?"

"The Pein that Naruto is facing, with the ability to absorb all ninjutsu."

"The Pein? So there's m-more than one?" Mai let her face scrunch, gasped slightly when something shifted in her arm. "Ow, goddammit-"

"Sorry."

"- So th-that's why they all looked kinda the same, with the o-orange hair and the piercings." Fumiko had probably figured that out before she died- she was a thinker like that. She'd said something, too, something Mai had barely heard, and even then all she'd heard was 'pet.' Mai was pretty sure she hadn't been talking about Asuka.

"Yes," Shiragiku said, kneeling to rifle through his pack and then the inside of his tunic, coming up with two vials of some strange looking liquid and half a grapefruit that looked a little bruised. "Here."

"I don't know what those are."

"Painkillers, Mai-chan."

Shiragiku had tricked her into taking things before that knocked her out so she wouldn't hurt herself overfighting. Nothing made a fighter feel more betrayed than waking up in the hospital after taking 'painkillers' during a mission for a dislocated elbow.

"Hell no. I can't sleep this out."

Shiragiku frowned. "Mai-chan-"

"Does it look like I'm ab-bout to run out and beat up a Pein?" she demanded. "If I'd wanted to get up and go after the one th-that did this to me, don't you think I-I woulda done it already?"

"I was going to say, 'Mai-chan, the ones that make you sleep are blue.' Also, I don't doubt that you know when you're outmatched."

Eishi gaped at him. "Are you nuts? No she doesn't!"

Mai shook her head. "Painkillers always m-make you less aware, anyway. Don't want it. G-give me the fruit thing."

...

~ "Come on!" She didn't waste time explaining, grabbing his hand and pulling at him. He got up, more because he was humoring her than because she was actually managing to pull him. "Downstairs! Downstairs downstairs down-" ~

...

"I don't want to be here forever," Fumiko admitted. "You seem really sad."

"You don't have to stay here," Yami said quietly. "I only came to you because I recognized your chakra. I wanted to talk to you, but that's it."

"I can't leave. Not without Gaara." she said firmly. There was so much darkness here. Gaara would get lost. He wouldn't be able to move on, she knew. Gaara wouldn't know to move on. He would think this was it. This must've been what he couldn't remember of death- black. And she wanted to try and find that woman. Maybe Rasa. Figure some things out before she saw her best friend again.

"I figured as much." Yami nodded. "It's hard to find others here. You have to know them. There are many trapped in purgatory, but this kind of meeting is rare."

"Well, we can stick together, right?"

"Sure." Yami grinned slightly. "Since we have all the time in the world... and have nothing better to do, why don't you work out what you'll tell him?"

"Gaara?" Fumiko stopped. "I don't know if I want to think about that. I'd rather remember nice things than think about what I say when Gaara dies. That stuff never works anyway." She smiled a little without humor. "I'd probably just tackle him instead of mysteriously appear with a light like you did."

"Then why don't you tell me? Plenty of time for stories."

"Tell you what? That I'll tackle him?"

"No!" He laughed. "Well, sure, if you want to. But I mean, about you and the Kazekage. It seems like you knew him in a way no one else did. Or just something interesting. It gets boring here."

"Something interesting, huh?" Even she giggled a little. "Well... we've both died once."

...

~ "Okay, okay," he muttered. "I needed a break, anyway." ~

...

Mai could feel herself knitting back together. She'd be on bed rest no matter what for a while, with a busted rib or two and the easy to tear, fragile skin being regrown, and her arm would be the equivalent of a fracture, but her stomach was almost healed-ish. It would leave behind a big swirly circular scar the size of Gaara's hand an inch or so below her left boob, next to the other scar. How many scars she was going to get, Mai had no clue.

It was infuriating. They couldn't see anything, and even Katsuyu didn't know exactly what was going on, despite the fact that she had a piece of herself on Naruto himself as she fought. She was keeping herself hidden.

So far, Naruto had managed to take out the Asura Path, the Preta Path, and the Human Path. There were still three others, but holy shit, Naruto had taken out three, two in a matter of seconds and one in some kind of strategic three-part plan involving a self-created S-ranked offensive Wind Release jutsu. She didn't even know Naruto was able to come up with battlefield tactics aside from 'attack.'

She herself hadn't even managed to take out more than one of those things' summons, let alone three Akatsuki. And, according to Katsuyu, the leader of Akatsuki.

"Naruto is taking on the Animal Path now."

The Animal Path. The one that had killed her sister. Everything in her strained to slide down this big stupid crater and kill her, to kill her and all of those other paths and then burn every single red Akatsuki cloud insignia that existed on the planet.

But she couldn't.

But maybe Naruto could.

Naruto was an idiot. But he was a different kind of idiot than he had been years ago. And maybe that was good.

"It's okay not to fight, you know."

"Shut up, Eishi." The answer was automatic. "Wait, what?"

"Did you even hear me?"

"I was thinking." She gave a half shrug, then winced. "Plus my arm hurts like hell. What'd you want?"

"I said that it's okay not to fight. Naruto can handle this. Probably." Eishi paused, then seemed to brush the thought off. "Well, I've never really met him, but he saved Gaara before, and he's already taken out three of them, so odds are he can beat the rest of them, too."

"Probably. Yeah. Doesn't really make me feel any less... you know." She gestured to the edge of the crater, a good twenty yards away at least, and that's if her vision wasn't jacked. On top of everything else, Mai was pretty sure she had a major concussion. Things clicked out of focus every once in a while, and she had a pounding headache.

"Yeah. I know."

"I hate sitting here."

"I know."

"Stupid bugs."

He snorted, but his expression looked troubled. "You know, I've never seen anything like..."

"Like this?" Mai considered that. It was true, Eishi really was just a Genin. Out of all their missions, the worst thing he'd probably ever seen was a rough gash, burnt skin, maybe her dislocated elbow; that'd looked and sounded very disturbing. Mai hadn't even stopped to think about the strange bodies, the rapid fire escape before the Path had found her. "Not as bad, but... I have."

"How?" Eishi asked disbelievingly. "You living some crazy double life? Got a team I don't know about?"

Mai never ever intended to tell him or Shiragiku or Otokaze-sensei about her ANBU life. Or anyone, for that matter. Fumiko knew. Gaara knew. Temari had already probably put two and two together, and Kankuro would get it eventually. No one else really needed to know, in her book.

"Sure."

"This is kind of insane, isn't it?" Eishi muttered, whether to her, Shiragiku, or both of them, Mai didn't know. "We're all just sitting here in the remains of Konoha, sitting and talking, waiting for Naruto to win. We can't even see what's going on from here without possibly getting fried with a jutsu."

"Yeah."

"It is."

"Naruto smokescreened the Animal path and is fighting the Animal Path inside his Toad's mouth." Katsuyu said helpfully from behind her. Mai could feel the vibrations from it's soft body in her shoulders.

"Um..." Mai squinted. "Woo?"

Eishi flicked open his dual fans, toying with the blades. They looked just like a pair of ordinary fans, pure yellow save for a steely blue-grey stripe from one end all the way to the other, dead center. Tiny, horrifyingly honed triangles jutted out, enough to not look like a weapin, but if he wanted, Eishi could decapitate someone with them.

Before he'd learned the art of tessenjutsu from Temari, he'd actually had his highest scores in taijutsu. People like Temari didn't fight close up, because they couldn't fight close up. Eishi had tried to remedy that, and where most opponents mistook his thigh pouches for kunai holsters, Eishi had access to both close up bukijutsu and wind ninjutsu.

Shiragiku, seeking something to take his mind off all the waiting, reached into his tunic and came out with a packet of seeds. He pushed three into the ground and held his fingers over the soil, face cloudy.

Mai could feel Naruto's chakra, but not the Peins'. Well, she sort of could, but it was like it was permeating the air. It was like trying to figure out where someone had sprayed the air freshener. Naruto's was a bright, nonstop orange that zipped about, but it was tainted, swirling with a pussy color like maple syrup similar to those of the Toads'.

Naruto's pus chakra had just cut out not that long ago, and it was a little concerning. As gross as it sounded to describe chakra as being like pus, it was strong. Really strong. "What did you call his thing again? Something about sage?"

"Sage jutsu chakra," Katsuyu said softly. "He's summoning a clone now with more."

The syrupy color and feeling returned, not exactly dimming Naruto's orange, just redirecting it. "Oh."

They were silent for another few minutes, and Mai's mind turned to darker places without the distraction. Pain was becoming a waning excuse. Not only was she getting used to it, but it was also vanishing slowly as she healed.

She was going to have to watch her older brother and make sure he didn't do something stupid. He wasn't altogether invincible anymore, and... and there were a lot of things, at this point, that Mai wouldn't put past him. And Kami, their mother. What was she going to tell their mother?

She did know that she was going to kick the crap out of her father, whether he said anything about it being somehow Gaara's fault or not. Fumiko deserved to die without regrets. If there was an afterlife, her sister was probably beating herself up worse than any Akatsuki member could- for leaving everyone alone, endangering her children. She didn't want her thinking about what could've been if she'd tried harder to connect with her father.

Mai had, in fact, been afraid of death. Ever since the invasion of Suna by these stupid nuke-nins, she knew it was definitely possible to come across someone you couldn't beat up with just determination. There was always going to be someone stronger than you, and stronger than them, and stronger than them.

But Fumiko really hadn't been. Not really.

"I thought about it a little bit. What it would be like to die. After Gaara died, I mean. And Chiyo-baa-sama."

"Yeah?" Mai used her teeth to rip open a jerky stick. "Gaara didn't remember much of it, did he?"

"No. That's why I thought about it. I mean, he was dead. Possibly for a couple of days. He had to have gone somewhere, right? There has to be an afterlife, otherwise he wouldn't have come back." Fumiko smiled and put her elbows on the table. "So my theory is that dying is just like being alive somewhere else!"

"Except that everyone you care about is still alive," Mai pointed out. "Hopefully."

"So what are we gonna do?" Eishi said, breaking the silence. "When we... get back to Sunagakure." He winced, patting at a gash on his leg.

"I don't know," Shiragiku said. Beneath his fingers, stalks were pushing up out of the ground. He'd gotten better at it since their mission to Kusa. They were already sprouting leaves, bud forming at the tops. His lips pursed, then relaxed into a sad little line. "Hold funerals for the lost. Be there to support our Kazekage. There isn't much else to do."

"I guess so." Eishi sighed. "You know, I've thought of my own funeral before."

"Have you?"

"Yeah. Like, what I would want it to be like, who I would want to be there. Pretty stupid and morbid, I guess." He snorted. "But, like, I know what kind of incense I want burned... which picture I would tell them to use... what clothes I want to wear. You know?"

"I don't want a death date on my gravestone. When I die. Someday." Fumiko laughed. "Eventually."

"What, so you just want a name?"

"No. I mean, like, my birthday, and put a dash, and leave it."

"Oh." Mai raised an eyebrow, smirking. "So you want to live forever, huh?"

"Sort of." Fumiko giggled, drumming her fingers on the bed sheets. "What about you?"

Mai shook the memory off. It was a stupid one, and one she hadn't taken seriously. "You know that they would just use your ninja registration picture, right? You don't look that different." She sighed. "Aloeswood."

"What?"

"The incense. I would want Aloeswood." Mai paused. "And give my swords to someone. Maybe they could give them a mantle, or pass it down through generations, or something."

"I would've thought you'd like to be buried with them."

"Nah. I'd be dead anyway, no use for them." She gestured halfheartedly to nothing with one hand. "Might as well give people something to look at other than an hourglass rock, right?"

Eishi wrinkled his nose. "I guess."

"What about you, Eishi?" Shiragiku questioned. "What incense would you burn?"

"Desert sage," he answered thoughtfully. "Or maybe Eucalyptus."

"Desert sage," Mai agreed. "Let's save Eucalyptus for Shiragiku here. Most crazy strong grass smell ever, it would match."

Eishi nodded. "Desert sage, then."

Mai snorted, then snickered. "Listen to us, talking about our funerals like a bunch of weirdos."

"We did almost get obliterated. Might as well," Eishi pointed out, but he was smirking. His pink hair, matted with mud, dirt, and blood, didn't stand out much anymore, despite the sunlight. He'd taken his headband off and tied it back around his waist. "We try to kill each other enough for it, anyway."

"Naruto has killed the Preta Path by turning him to stone."

"Wait, what?" Mai frowned, looking up at the Katsuyu's crazy stalk eyes. "Didn't he already kill the Preta Path?"

"The Naraka path is capable of bringing the others back with a type of reanimation jutsu," was the slug's answer. "He rejuvenated the Preta Path's body."

"Wait, wait, wait- what?"

Fortunately, it wasn't much longer until Katsuyu announced the death of the Naraka Path. Still, though, what in hell were they fighting? 'Pet.' What was pet? Mai was sure she could figure it out if she tried. All these pieces- their similar features, selective abilities, their piercings and one-track minds- were just waiting to turn into a picture.

But she couldn't. Didn't want to try.

She wanted to just goof around with Eishi and Shiragiku until she was either fully healed, healed enough to fight something, or they all got killed.

"He had to have gone somewhere, right? There has to be an afterlife, otherwise he wouldn't have come back." Fumiko smiled and put her elbows on the table. "So my theory is that dying is just like being alive somewhere else!"

All at once, chakra disappeared. One of the sap-colored ones, so one of the Toads, although she couldn't tell whose it was. Just gone, exactly like Fumiko's had been: there, and then... not there. She flinched. "Katsuyu-"

There was a sound like thunder then, big booming crashes that shook the ground. Eishi shoved at Shiragiku, who rolled out of the way of a dislodged rock that landed between the two, crushing the newly bloomed soft pink flowers Shiragiku had grown. Mai couldn't react, but nothing came her way.

"What the-" she started, but Eishi stood and glanced around, eyes shaded with one hand.

"Those big toad things. They got wiped," he said with alarm.

"Naruto is down," the slug said with alarm. "The Deva Path-"

"I'll show him Deva," Mai muttered. She tested her bad arm, which moved despite the heavy weight of the slug and her splint. It hurt in a way that someone like, say, Eishi or Shiragiku would say burned, but to her, compared to what it had been, it was nothing. "My body almost done yet?"

"Not yet, Mai," Katsuyu said slowly. "Please, just be patient."

"Let me rephrase. If I punch someone, will my stomach unravel?"

"No, but-"

"Good." Mai sat up all the way, dislodging the slugs, They inchwormed off her thighs, green chakra fading from their one on her arm she pulled off with her other hand and set down gently on the rock. "Thanks a ton, really."

"Mai." Eishi caught her shoulder. "Come on, an hour ago you were bleeding out."

"And now I'm not. See?" She gestured to her ripped up, shredded top that at this point exposed her bloodstained bra. "Like magic."

"This-" Mai whipped her head around to glare at him, daring him to finish- this is not your fight. It was anything but that. This was definitely her fight, it didn't matter if the Animal Path that had directly killed her sister was dead, these people were technically the leader of Akatsuki that had lost her her taicho and at one point her brother and almost Kankuro and a lot of security and a lot of sleep and now Fumiko. "... You can't fight this."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll die," he said in a deadpan voice that made her bristle.

Least it won't be for ANBU, she thought, but her mouth said, "No I won't."

"You so will. And then I'll be the one who has to explain why you're both dead to both your parents and the Kazekage. Not cool, Mai. Plus I saved your life, so you owe me one."

"Katsuyu saved my life," she argued.

"I brought her to you. Three of her. And risked my life to find you."

"I set off a flare!"

"In the middle of a goddamn rocket airstrike!" He threw up his hands, temporarily releasing her shoulder. They were both still squatting on a rock. Her metal sheet was a few feet away; she'd moved the clear the crap off Fumiko's while Eishi was off searching for survivors. "I could've been killed!"

"Then why'd you come? That was a Suna flare and you'd seen Shiragiku at the hospital, you knew it was me!"

"Because you're my teammate, Mai!" He huffed and grabbed both of her shoulders. Mai bit back a curse at the pain that flared up in her still broken arm. "Sunagakure shinobi don't give up, but they sure as hell don't commit suicide!"

Commit... suicide?

Mai quieted. "That what you think I'm trying to do?" she demanded in a hushed voice. "Kill myself?"

Eishi nearly growled. "Wouldn't put it past you and your crazy training regimes."

"I'm not trying to kill myself," she said firmly, but then she hesitated. ... right? "I'm not a coward."

"Didn't say it was cowardly, just said I wouldn't let you."

"No you didn't." It was petty, but true. "Just that Sunagakure shinobi don't do it."

"Then let me say it." Eishi's eyes narrowed. So did Mai's, at the unspoken almost maybe challenge. "I won't let you kill yourself for no good reason."

"No good reason, huh?"

"Naruto can handle himself," Eishi said. "You dying won't affect this battle either way. It's a stupid death."

"Think so?" Mai said dryly. "Might be."

"Hyuga Hinata is already fighting," Katsuyu said unhelpfully from behind them. Mai had already felt her chakra move out onto the field. It was puttering out, now, which was part of the reason she was fighting so hard to go fight. She'd seen the girl's little stalking habits. The shy, timid girl who never wanted to fight anyway.

"Definitely is," Eishi agreed. "You could do much better."

That was enough to make her snicker, but she swallowed it immediately. "Yeah? Like how?"

"Fiery ball of destruction in a war zone," was his immediate reply.

Mai blinked. She was so startled for a second that she let her scowl go slack. "What the hell? Did you, like, already know the answer to that question? You just said 'fiery ball of destruction in a war zone' like you rehearsed it."

"That's not the point."

"Do you seriously fantasize about me dying? The hell?"

"I do not fantasize! I just have an overactive imagination! This is still not the point!"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Shut up! It's still better to say 'Mai, war hero' than to say 'Mai, that idiot who jumped in front of Pein.'"

"He has a point."

"Shut up, Shiragiku." Still, Mai paused. "There aren't any wars for me to die in a fiery explosion in. This might just be my best bet, after all. The only other thing I'll get the chance to die in for a while is a Genin mission."

"Live a little, Mai." Eishi smirked. "I'm sure one of these villages we're allied with will pick a fight with someone eventually."

Mai opened her mouth to reply, then froze.

What was that?

That angry dark red purple swirling power that forced out orange and sap and everything else even thoughts in her head, pushing back her hair as something screamed, and wind whipped about from the crater. "What the..." She waved Eishi off, shook away his fingers and stood, gasping, hand to her stomach, and limped to the edge of the crater.

Eishi followed, still talking about death and blahblahblah, and so did Shiragiku, standing and taking cautious steps forward through the rubble. She kicked away a rock the size of her leg so that it skittered down the side, looking ridiculously small compared to what had once been the great Village hidden in the Leaves.

Mai froze, and then Eishi did, and Shiragiku followed, the only one who gasped.

From here, she couldn't see Naruto.

But she could definitely see the cloud of undulating pure power blowing like a mushroom cloud, sending waves of hatred through the battlefield. It was impossible to miss. And she wasn't saying she could sense it, which she could, it was shorting out her brain, no, she was saying she could actually see it- visible masses of chakra oozing into the air.

"What is that?" Eishi yelped. "What-"

"That's Naruto," Mai said quietly. "Hinata's down. Bastard."

"That's Naruto? What-"

"You didn't know, did you?" Mai shook her head. "I forgot to tell you." Her gaze sharpened, and her pink-haired Genin teammate fell silent. "Naruto- that kid, the one Akatsuki's after- Naruto's the jinchuuriki for the Nine-tails fox demon."

"What?"

"That," she said numbly, "Is the Nine-tails. Shit."

...

~ He followed her obediently down the stairs to the lobby, albeit not as quickly as Fumiko would have liked. When they finally reached the first floor, she stopped, huffing slightly from exertion, and pointed to the little boy, who stiffened. Gaara was still coming down the stairs and hadn't seen him yet. "Fumiko, what-" ~

...

"I wonder what's going on." Fumiko bit her lip and realized that all of her sores were gone, leaving only smooth, unmarred skin. She reached up a hand to feel her eyes, almost hoping they were still there, and smiled slightly when she felt the bagginess of her circles. Then she sighed. "How long have I been here?"

"Impossible to tell." Yami sighed too. "Maybe hours. Maybe days. I don't get tired here."

"Oh." She bit harder, but didn't bleed. Scratching at her skin, her fingernails caught the flaky residue of acrylic paint. "... Why did this place change my clothes? And my... the rest of me?"

"My guess is that this is what your soul looks like." He shrugged. "Like my face vanishing all the time. I had nobody but a cat and a student, some teammates I didn't really know, and ANBU."

"My soul?" Fumiko laughed. "Gaara'll like it. My soul covered in paint."

Then her expression froze and she let her hand fly up to her neck, curling at her turtleneck. Her fingers brushed the rough shell, dried with worn, tired-looking cold streaks. Fumiko's fingers closed around it, and she pulled to remember the feel of the fishnet on the back of her neck through her shirt, and closed her eyes.

...

~ "No way," the little boy exclaimed, embarrassment forgotten as Gaara finally reached the ground and glanced after her finger. "You're the Kazekage!" ~

...

They were gone. The last Pein had fled, and whatever the hell Naruto had turned into had followed.

Now she was skidding down the crater with a book sized Katsuyu on her shoulder, Eishi and Shiragiku hot on her heels. She was hesitant to leave Fumiko's Katsuyu alone, but she needed to go check things out, find someone, get Hinata to a medic, something more useful than sitting back on her ass and doing nothing. To her relief, the slug followed, more or less oozing down the near cliffside.

Nearby- like, less than a mile- something big was going on, dust and impact smoke rising into the air. It was also where that crazy chakra was, so Mai could assume that that was where Naruto and Pein were duking it out. She hoped to hell and back that somehow they would be able to bring the idiot back from his head without killing themselves and everyone else, but that was a different problem for a different time.

When they finally reached the near-gone chakra signature that was Hinata, Team Gai was already there, Tenten kneeling on the ground beside her. Neji, Gai, and Lee all stood around the two. Neji detected them first, no surprise there, turning his head to look over there shoulder.

"Mai-chan? What-"

Mai waved him off, wincing. Her other arm still hung limp, and when she stopped running, the Katsuyu on her shoulder eeled around the broken part of the limb and continued to heal. "Nothing. Is Hinata alright?"

"Alive," Tenten said. "But like I was telling them, she needs help, now."

"Fumiko can-" Mai found herself quipping off before her brain caught up to her mouth, hand faltering on it's way to point over her shoulder. After a second's mental struggle, she slanted her eyes to the ground. "I... I mean, we should go find a medic."

Neji's eyes sharpened instantly. Out of the three of them, he was the only one who caught the slip. "Mai-chan?"

"Sakura," she said. "I would myself but like... the crater nearly killed me on the way down. Lee, go with Shiragiku. He tracks, too. Go find Sakura. Bring her here. I don't know too much but we probably shouldn't move her around."

Hinata was pale. Mai couldn't see her face, but blood stained her jacket and the soil around her. Injured, maybe stabbed. It was weird that she knew that, but she instantly recognized the signs of being stabbed rather than an ordinary slash or cut. Lee nodded, flashed over to Shiragiku who nodded as well, and then they both took off, blinding shunshins kicking dust where they landed.

"Mai-chan," Neji said in a hard tone. "What happened to Fumiko?"

Mai opened her mouth, then closed it. Her jaw clenched, teeth dragging against each other. "That-"

"Later," Eishi said. "If that thing over there is really Naruto, then chances are it'll clean Pein up quick. If it comes back, we need to be clear, so we need to get Hinata ready to move, and anyone else who needs help. You're, uh, Neji, right? With the Byakugan eye thing?" Neji, after a moment, nodded. "Right, then, uh, find injured people. Anyone that can't move on their own."

Mai blinked and looked over at him, startled. Since when had he ever given orders? And was he covering for her? Kami, if he said she owed him later she would grind his face into the dirt, but... but she did. Mai suddenly realized that she wasn't ready to face her troubles out loud, not just yet.

Neji didn't respond for a second or two, eyes narrowing, but then finally he nodded again, eyes flaring with Byakugan. He glanced around in every direction, spinning slowly.

Gai made a sharp sound of disbelief. "I can't believe things have gotten this bad," he murmured.

"Look!" Tenten stood from her crouch, jogging over somewhere to Mai's right. She knelt again in front of a toad Mai hadn't noticed before, the only average-sized one she'd seen thus far, and picked it up. "There's another toad here. It's injured as well. Or..." The Fuuinjutsu user paused, then sighed. "No, never mind. It's dead."

...

~ Gaara blinked, and then his head whipped to hers, eyes wide. ~

...

"Can you teach me how to make light?" Fumiko asked, then shivered despite the fact that she couldn't really tell if it was cold or not, rubbing her arms. She didn't have her cloak, which was kind of strange. Everything else from her younger years had manifested, even her satchel- but not her cloak.

"You mean, a lantern?"

"Yeah. Something to greet people with." Fumiko smiled softly. "... That people can see... And I don't want to be in the dark all the time. I think if it was just my voice talking to people they'd think they'd lost it."

"Just... Think about it. I don't know. I myself just decided I didn't want to be in the dark anymore, and this lantern appeared. My teammates passed straight through, so I don't know if it works for everyone."

"Oh." Fumiko stared at the lantern's flame, which somehow didn't give her a sun spot to blink away. "I guess I won't know until I'm alone, huh."

"The Kazekage..." Yami started thoughtfully, picking the light up by it's handle to illuminate the darkness immediately to their front, which didn't really cast light so much as turn the blackness into a softer sort of washed-out grey. "It seems he's much different than I assumed he was. Why do you think he'll need your help so badly? Most just move right on."

"Gaara doesn't really... he doesn't really understand things sometimes. Moving on is really hard for him, even if it's just from some mistake he made in the office." She stared off into the grey, wondering how far she could walk before she met something. "He wouldn't realize that this wasn't the last stop. Or, he... he would think it was Hell or something. He would stay."

"Despite the fact that no one else was here?" Yami frowned. "When our Unit passed through, a few stayed longer than others. But we were missing some, so I know there's somewhere else. If I was alone..."

She shook her head. "No. Gaara's had... well, we didn't exactly have a normal childhood. You know that. Everyone did, right," she corrected herself with a short, easy laugh. "Ha... yeah, well, he isn't exactly emotionless like everyone thinks. He's more sensitive than some other ninja. All the blood bothered him."

"So, what? You really believe that he'll think this is the last for him?"

Fumiko looked at him quietly for a second. "If there's no one else he thinks is good to tell him otherwise?"

"... Huh. I see."

"... Yeah."

...

~ "That was my face," she said, grinning, pointing to his. ~

...

Lee and Shiragiku came back with Sakura, an ANBU, and a Hyuga.

The pink-haired medic had immediately knelt by Hinata's side, doing medic-things that Mai had seen Fumiko doing with patients in the hospital, cutting away her lavender, bloodstained jacket to expose the fishnet top beneath. Her scar was going to form in the same place as Mai's, only hers would be on both sides and smaller. Whatever she'd been stabbed with- a rod from one of the Pein's bodies, according to the Hyuga man- had gone all the way through, just missing a few major organs.

Hinata stayed unconscious throughout the entire healing process. Watching her skin seal together was a little disturbing. How had Eishi just sat there and watched her organs stitch back together without puking? She looked away to her own arm, which was still misleadingly covered and blood and gore, but at this point the bones were nearly sealed. Very badly sealed where it would still be considered a partial break.

But not, like, disconnected anymore.

And she could stand. The Katsuyu had given up on trying to get her to lie down for her stomach. It was still a mostly open wound, but it was open more in the way of a thin gash like ripped stitches than the gaping hole it had been. Mai had taken some needle and medic's thread from Sakura and set about stitching up the smaller lacerations and bloody tears, as well as pulling wooden splinters from her skin.

Practicing and fighting with her swords, as one would guess, had made her mostly ambidextrous, but still, she was glad it was her left arm messed up and not her right. She'd only ever stitched with her right hand. She had the ANBU's attention, or at least she was pretty sure she did, since the mask was staring right at her. Mai pointedly ignored his- her?- gaze, biting her tongue to keep from muttering every time the needle slipped through her skin.

Hinata had been healing for nearly fifteen minutes. Mai was beginning to suspect that her Katsuyu slug was running out of chakra, since her arm wasn't really getting any more healed. The Katsuyu behind her with Fumiko shifted every now and again, but otherwise remained quiet.

"Why would she do something like that?" Neji demanded. Of whom, Mai had no clue. Probably he was just thinking aloud.

"She loved Naruto," Mai commented. "Or at least really believed she did."

Neji gave her a quiet look. She knew that he was barely refraining from asking after her sister, if only because she still hadn't shown up to help and he'd probably guessed from that alone what had happened. He didn't want confirmation.

"Naruto was able to suppress the nine-tails all on his own," Sakura's Katsuyu announced suddenly. Sakura was the only one who noticeably flinched, but Mai blinked. "And now... he's just about to go up against the final Pein."

"Lee!" Gai barked, and Lee startled before looking at him with his perpetual wide eyes. "Let's go. We're gonna back up Naruto."

"Right!"

"No, wait." the slug interrupted. "Please don't. You'll only get in his way if you do."

Lee tensed. "But he- Pein destroyed the Leaf! Naruto can not do this alone!"

"Naruto has a plan he intends to follow," the summons argued quietly, so that it almost sounded like she wasn't arguing. Which she wasn't. She was merely speaking what she observed, and she was with Naruto, anyway, so she knew what was going on. "Let's put our faith in him."

When the bowl-cut ninja opened his mouth to protest, Tenten cut him off. "It's fine, Lee. Naruto can handle himself."

"Yes, but..."

Mai shrugged, one-armed. "Well if he can take out five of them, he can take out one more, right?" She grinned. "Anyway, he went all nine-tails on his orange ass. If that guy isn't done, then he really is some kinda Kami. Hey. Hey, Katsuyu, I can tell you're not glowing anymore, stop pretending I'm healing."

"I'm sorry, Mai," the slug said, and she snorted as it scooted up onto her shoulder, sliding under her hair to rest against her neck.

"Don't worry, Katsuyu. You fixed me up plenty."

"What happened to you, anyway?" Tenten questioned. "You look terrible."

"Gee, thanks," Mai answered dryly. She touched the skin underneath her torn shirt, wiping away some of the blood as gently as she could so the six pairs of curious eyes could see the cut. "And anyway, one of those centipede things smashed me through a building. Caught me off guard, is all. I'll be fine."

"How old are you, again?" Sakura asked.

"How come every time I do something mature, people ask how old I am? Anyway, I'm thirteen."

"Wait, so that time before during Matsuri's kidnapping-"

"I was still an Academy student, yes," she grumbled, annoyed. "Now focus on Hinata."

"Oh! Right," she said, and turned her attention back to the injured bluenette. The green glow in her fingers intensified, washing out Hinata's pale skin. Everyone went quiet for another few minutes, during which Mai stepped back towards Fumiko's Katsuyu slug.

"This one just ran out of chakra," she said quietly, gesturing to the summons on her shoulder. "What about you?"

"Not yet."

"How long until you run out?" Mai's eyes narrowed. "And how well is it? I don't want those kids screwed in the head from some kind of weird side effect. Gaara would literally kill me."

The slug was quiet for a moment. "Soon," it murmured. Mai's heart jumped.

"How soon is soon?" she demanded. "Because the hospital is charbroiled and Sakura'll be done soon. Far as I know, Tsunade's out of commission. There's nowhere to go that's not days away."

"I don't know."

"Helpful." Mai scowled, mind whizzing.

Suddenly there were gasps from the group of ninja. Mai cast another worried glance at the Katsuyu before sighing and jogging back over to the group, wincing and holding her side, as Neji stammered, "Lady Hinata!"

As she neared, she could see Hinata's pure white eyes fluttering about in confusion. It wasn't a surprise she'd finally woken up; aside from a tiny spot of blood the circumference of a small shuriken on her torso, the stab would was completely gone. It had probably just been a matter of spiking adrenaline or something. She leaned over slightly to see her better, hands on her knees.

"Hinata?" she asked as they all looked on. "Feeling better?"

"Y- You're all here," she said weakly.

"Thank goodness," Sakura said.

"We were worried," Tenten scolded.

"Yes, Hinata," Lee said in a for once quiet voice, concerned. "Are you okay?"

Carefully and gingerly, Hinata sat up, aided by herself and Sakura. Hinata was still a little battered and bruised. Mai wished she could've seen her fight with Pein- the fact that she was still alive led Mai to believe that maybe she'd underestimated the ninja. "Thank you guys," he said, looking around at team Gai and Sakura and the Hyuga and team Otokaze. "All of you. Especially you- thanks, Sakura."

Mai raised her eyebrows. Ouch. Not like it'd been her idea to find the medic, or anything.

"Oh, I'm so relieved." Sakura said with a smile, letting out a little relieved sigh. "It's good to have you back."

"Everyone!" Sakura's Katsuyu said suddenly. "Naruto had defeated the last Pein!"

Everyone gasped. Mai might've, except that she was being very careful not to with her at least bruised or fractured rib or two, but she did give a tired smile and straighten. Beside her, Eishi lightly punched her shoulder. "See?" he said. "No need for dramatic death."

Mai snickered at the strange looks. Lee hadn't heard them at all; his grin was nearly the size of his entire face. He smacked his fist into his hand audibly, excitement leaking through his person. "Yes! Leave it to Naruto!"

Sakura looked up at him away from Eishi. "How is Naruto doing? Is he injured at all?"

"Well, he's very fatigued," the slug answered, "But he's okay."

Mai glanced down at Hinata, who discreetly brushed away tears, hiding her smile with her hand. The youngest Mitsuwa said nothing, merely looking back up and punching Eishi back, who somehow wasn't expecting it. Just because she'd taken a bit of time didn't mean she wouldn't hit him back.

"Ow!" he protested.

"So," Gai said, looking off into the direction Naruto had left. "Where is Naruto now?"

"He's going by himself to where the real Pein is."

Everyone once again gasped aside from Team Otokaze. Mai huffed out a sigh. "Of course he is," she muttered, but her voice was immediately drowned out by Neji, who took a quick step forward towards the slug.

"But why would he do something so reckless?" Neji turned. "Please, Gai-sensei. We have to follow him!"

"Right!" Gai hopped off the rock he was standing on, and Lee began to follow, stepping out around Hinata to join his sensei, but Katsuyu spoke up, causing them both to pause. Fumiko's Katsuyu spoke this time, which worried her a little.

"Wait. Naruto said he doesn't want any help."

"What?" Gai snapped. "He doesn't?"

"I don't care!" Neji exclaimed in a frustrated voice, the most emotion Mai had heard from the Jonin since meeting him. His eyes narrowed. "He's done enough alone! And besides, he's weakened right now!" He clenched his jaw, chin jerking down slightly as he looked back at the summons. "Lady Katsuyu, lead us to Naruto!"

"I cannot," Sakura's slug said apologetically, and their heads swiveled around to the new voice. "I'm sorry."

"Look, if he doesn't want help then he doesn't want help," Eishi said. "Even if he is exhausted, we won't be any help against someone like whatever Pein is the real one."

"Yes," Shiragiku agreed. "We should stay. Despite Naruto's overcoming the nine-tails it's still in our best interest to gather and heal the injured, and collect any bodies that you found earlier, Neji-san."

Neji opened his mouth angrily to reply, but then Fumiko's Katsuyu spoke again suddenly.

"I can no longer feel their chakra," she said.

...

~ The little kid shifted the bowl of candy in his hands and the bag he'd brought with him. His eyes were wider than Gaara's. "Wow, why are you down here? Don't you have, like... Important Kazekage stuff to do?" ~

...

"Do you mind if we look around here?"

"Look around?" Yami pursed his lips. "What do you mean?"

"I mean... I saw a woman earlier. I think it was Gaara's mom, Karura. And I want to try and find Rasa as well, if he's here."

"The Fourth Kazekage? I haven't seen him, but then, he never spoke to me."

"I've talked to him once or twice." Fumiko stood. "I want to try and help. When Gaara comes, I want to have his answers for him. And like you said... it's not like I have anything else to do, right?"

Yami laughed, then heaved upward. "Why not? I-"

"Huh?" Fumiko felt at her stomach, which suddenly felt full. "What the..."

And then there were lights in front of her and her stomach felt normal again. They were distorted and not particularly any color, but it seemed white. They flickered slightly, and then faded entirely, leaving behind a residue like firework smoke at night.

Yami's face soured. "That..."

Fumiko knew what that was. She knew exactly what that was. Had been.

...

~ Fumiko laughed at Gaara's second look, like, what words do I use? She limped forward and knelt in front of the blushing, excited little boy. "What's your name?" she asked. ~

...

Mai let loose a violent stream of curse words, pulling at her sister's shoulder before the slug had completely released her. She could almost taste the tension in the air, Neji's and all their wordless shock.

Mai hadn't actually seen her yet. One of her eyes had been forced closed by the stickiness of the slug's body, but her mouth was still drawn up in fear, one open eye wide, pupil dilated more than Mai had ever thought was actually physically possible. Her everything was cold, limbs already stiff. At least Katsuyu had taken the liberty of putting her head back where it was supposed to go, and Mai assumed it was healed at least mostly since it didn't loll or click.

She buried her face in her sister's hair, holding her by the shoulders, ignoring the pain in her broken arm.

Mai didn't know what she had thought was going to happen. Of course she was going to freak out, why the hell had she thought that everything would be better as soon as her nephews were alright? Stupid, she was stupid.

Shiragiku touched her shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a comforting way. A shudder ripped through her body as she bit her tongue to stop herself from instinctively trying to rip his arm off, instead gripping her sister tightly.

"Oh, Kami," Tenten breathed.

It took Lee a solid minute before everything registered, perpetually wide eyes going even wider. His breath stuck in his throat audibly, a strangled gasp. "Fumiko!" he cried. "Oh, no! What happened!? Is she-"

Someone must've done her job and shot him a warning dirty look, because his voice died away instantly. "Shush, Lee."

And then suddenly, whoever had shushed him choked on a gasp. At their confused murmuring she pulled her head up, forcing herself to look up towards the sky Eishi was pointing at. She paused, arms going slack.

There was light everywhere. Blue light, like the Auroras she'd heard about that lit up the land of Snow, swimming across the sky, waving like prairie grass in a Suna wind.

I'm going insane, Mai thought as she stared at it. I've snapped, finally snapped, and now I've gone insane.

"What is that?" Eishi exclaimed at the same time that Lee said, "What's that blue light surrounding him?"

Mai let her head swivel to see what he was talking about just as the old lady toad started to scream, startled. The other toad- the one that was dead and cold, or at least had been dead and cold- was sitting up.

"What happened to me?" he exclaimed.

Something hot burned at her arms. Mai flinched and looked back down, almost jumping out of her skin at the bright blue light surrounding her sister's body, the glow expanding and stretching to cover her.

...

~ "Kennie- I mean Kenji!" he blurted. He seemed flustered, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Kenji. Yeah."

...

"What is this?" Fumiko yelped as the anchoring light shoved through her back, spreading through the rest of her sensationless spirit body. It actually felt strange, warmth spreading where just seconds before there'd been nothing.

"I've seen moving on," Yami said with a surprised half-smirk that Fumiko recognized to be Mai's. "And that isn't it."

"What does that mean?" she cried, feeling a sudden tug that jerked her backwards a step. Something like pain- a near foreign sensation- manifested numbly in her neck. "What's happening?"

"Like I said, I'm no expert on Purgatory," Yami said, leaning slightly to pick up the lantern. The bench disappeared slowly, fading, as was Yami's voice. "But I think you're pulling back." He smiled. "Tell Mai I'll be waiting, okay?"

The pain in her neck intensified, and then she gasped.

...

~ She grinned at him. "I like your costume, Kenji. Gaara does too, he's just really surprised right now." ~

...

Mai was not afraid of ghosts.

Just putting that out there.

But that didn't make her any less startled when Fumiko's fingers suddenly tightened against her legs where they laid. Mai, shocked, was ashamed to admit that she'd dropped her sister, who yelped loudly, eyes twitching.

"Ah, fuck," Mai cursed. "What the-"

"Mai?"

...

~ "Kenji-kun, did you actually go in there with that-" someone else, another boy, started to say from the door, and then it stopped. "Hey, wait, you're the Kazekage!" ~

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only killed her temporarily
> 
> Hehe


	15. Playwright

...

~ "Happy birthday, Gaara!" ~

...

"I swear to Kami, if you ever die again, I'll kill you."

"I know."

Mai scowled, lips pulling back to show teeth. "You scared the hell out of me."

Fumiko fidgeted, running fingers over her stomach. At first, she'd been more surprised at her sudden change of clothes than she had been about being dropped in the dirt- back to her Suna-tan maternity shirt and loose brown capris. "I know."

Air hissed through Mai's nose. "And you are explaining everything to Gaara."

"Yeah." Fumiko smiled tiredly. "I know."

Stop saying 'I know,'" Mai muttered, but the side of her mouth pulled up in an equally tired smirk.

They were back in the caravan, no more than a half a day out from Konoha. The escort miraculously hadn't been destroyed, outside the village on it's way like it had been during the attack. Fumiko, with no visible symptoms of injury or rigor mortis, had immediately strained to go home, without even so much as a pain in her neck.

She wanted to see Gaara. No matter how painful it was going to be to explain everything.

Mai seemed to be in no rush, which wasn't really a surprise given the semi-swollen stitches on her face and arms and legs and sides, her two entirely broken ribs, and the newly stitched (by Sakura) wound on her stomach. There was still a lot of raw, damaged, misplaced skin, but everyone had agreed it was better to get her to Suna's hospital since Konoha's was gone.

On top of everything else, her left arm was broken, with a little coin-sized mark where her humerus bone had jabbed out, but that scar would probably fade away with time. The crude, bloody splint had been replaced with a mostly clean sling and bandages made up from Fumiko's retrieved medical supplies. That, too, had been close enough to the edge of the village to avoid destruction.

Her sister's eyes were lined with exhaustion. She was still crusted in remnants of gore, but she looked more like she wanted to take a nap for two years than anything else, picking at the bandages on her arm absentmindedly.

She'd changed her shirt, taking one from her dirty clothes she'd packed, and now looked extremely better than she had in her bloodstained, ripped up top that basically only served as a cape. She'd changed pants as well, and with her blades, she looked just like an ordinary shinobi coming back from a mission.

Compared to her, Fumiko had gotten off relatively lucky, considering that she'd been the one to actually die. She was tired, extremely so, and her clothes were a little torn and dirty from random falling debris, but aside from that, she was fine. Rinne Rebirth had even restored a portion of her chakra, which she immediately spent by using a diagnostic on her stomach, nearly weeping when she saw her twins moving about as usual.

Now the two were propped up against each other on one bench side of the caravan, trying not to pass out. Eishi was just outside the curtain walking alongside them despite his fractured rib to give them space to just be sisters and feel warm. As far as Fumiko knew, Shiragiku and Otokaze were at point.

She hadn't yet even begun to try and explain what she remembered of being dead, which wasn't much, but it was enough- the flashes of Karura, Gaara's mother, her necklace, and the man with black hair- Yami? Yami. Who'd given her a message for Mai.

But she couldn't remember what he'd said. Just darkness.

She was also really hungry, but most of Konoha's, well, everything had been destroyed, so she was saving the escort's rations. The Village hidden in the Leaves would have to rebuild from scratch, start over with nothing. They would even have to fill the craters just to make a ground.

The only things in that village left standing was most of the wall and the Hokage monument. The rest was just a bunch of twisted rubble pushed away from the middle.

The Leaf's Hokage, Tsunade, was in a coma.

Fumiko knew that despite the Rinne Rebirth used by someone called Nagato- the controller of the Peins- if Tsunade's slugs hadn't protected everyone in the initial destruction of the village, there wouldn't have been any bodies left to reanimate. The thought was chilling. It was because of the Sannin that she was alive now at all.

The caravan bumped and rocked slowly. Fumiko let her head drop onto her little sister's shoulder, and, after a moment, felt Mai's hand on her head, petting her hair. Mai said nothing, however, and when Fumiko glanced up at her face, she realized that she was staring pensively at the other end of the caravan, face drawn in concentration, eyes unfocused, lost in thought.

Mai had learned very quickly to take care of herself, Fumiko knew. After Fumiko had moved out, despite seeing her just as much as she always had, her sister had quickly forced herself to be almost entirely independent, relying on her own skills and morals and no one else's.

And it made her wonder, sometimes, which of the two of them was really the older sister. The black-haired kunoichi had grown up so much. It was terrifying. But it was nice- to have someone to rely on, to borrow strength from. Like now.

Mai's head tipped onto hers, the closest thing she could really get to a hug in her chakra deprived, injured state. "Hey," she said roughly. "Don't you dare guilt trip me, now. I'm still mad at you."

A giggle fluttered out of her throat. "I know."

Mai groaned. "Gah, I should've just let myself die instead of setting off that... stupid flare. 'Least then, I woulda been revived, with my body fixed at least a little bit. Jeez. Stupid survival instincts. What are the chances that the one time they save you, you woulda been brought back to life, anyway?"

"Dunno." Fumiko smiled, taking in Mai's coppery, ashy scent. "Good, apparently."

"You know, now you're both freaks of nature," Mai mused.

"Huh?"

"You and Gaara." She laughed, a rough sound, almost wet. "Now you've both died, and come back to life. It's like you just can't be apart. And they say I'm too stubborn to die..."

"Well... we've both died once."

Fumiko actually flinched at the memory. Those were her words- as she recalled them she remembered speaking them, but when? When she was dead, with Yami, the faceless man with brown hair.

"Then why don't you tell me? Plenty of time for stories."

The voice was suddenly crystal clear in her mind, deep and strong and calm, practiced and easy. Fumiko bit her lip and closed her eyes. What was it? What was it she was forgetting?

"Tell you what? That I'll tackle him?"

"No!" He laughed. "Well, sure, if you want to. But I mean, about you and the Kazekage. It seems like you knew him in a way no one else did. Or just something interesting. It gets boring here."

"Something interesting, huh?" Even she giggled a little. "Well... we've both died once."

"Yo, sis," Mai said, voice cutting suddenly into her foggy thoughts. "Don't pass out yet, okay? If you fall asleep I'll fall asleep, and if I fall asleep I'll probably die from my stupid concussion."

"Hmm?" Fumiko blinked, fog clearing away along with the voices. "What?"

"Boredom. Concussion. Can't sleep." Mai raised an eyebrow, and lifted her head again. "What are you thinking about, anyway? Your face got really far gone there for just a second."

"I don't know, actually."

"Nahh, come on. Now I'm curious."

"I'm trying to remember..." Fumiko chewed her bottom lip. "I'm trying to remember what I saw in the afterlife."

Mai's shoulder jumped, jarring Fumiko's face so that she sat up all the way. "You saw the afterlife?" she exclaimed. "Oh, shit, that's right, you died. Did you forget, too? Like Gaara did?"

"Some." Fumiko hesitated. She wanted to wait to tell Mai about what she remembered until she, well, remembered it all, but at the same time, especially now, she didn't really feel like keeping anything away from her sister. "Okay, I saw a guy."

"A guy." Mai's voice was flat. "Just one guy?"

"... And a woman." Fumiko could feel her face scrunch up in thought. "And it was, well, dark. Really dark. Like Gaara said. Something about a cat?"

Mai gave her a blank stare. "A cat."

"No..." She paused. "... Yes?"

"What kind of afterlife did you go to?" she asked in disbelief, trying obviously not to laugh, arm sliding away from Fumiko's back to hug her ribcage. "Like, what the hell?"

"She was a real brat. But she always blamed herself for everything, a real piece of work."

"I know you, because your sister was my student."

"Sorry, I'm not that eloquent. I'm ANBU."

"I would tell her..."

"Someone wanted to talk to you," Fumiko blurted.

Mai's mirth vanished instantly from her person, tensing. "What? Who?"

"Yami."

"Yami?" Mai's brows drew together. "I don't know a Yami."

"Who are you waiting for?"

"Believe it or not? My student. And my cat."

"His student." Fumiko bit her lip again, gnawing. "He said... you were his student. He was waiting for you and.. for his cat?"

"Yami." Mai's lips pursed. "Can you tell me what he looked like, or were you just like floating balls of light, or-"

"His face disappeared sometimes." That, she could remember with a weird clarity now that she was recalling bits of conversation, but other details were still lost, swirling just beyond her fingers. "And he had black hair. I can't even remember the... remember the cut."

"Fumiko, what did he say?" Mai grabbed her shoulder with her good hand. "What did Yami say?"

"I don't-" The flashes vanished. "I don't remember."

Fumiko winced, waiting for followup questions, waiting for Mai to ask her over and over and press her until even the memory of darkness disappeared. But then, she looked up into her sister's flecked eyes and saw something like hope in her smile.

"Yami. Surname?"

Fumiko shook her head, startled. "Um- no..."

"Yami. Black hair. Had a cat." Mai laughed, a tiny aborted sound that made her ribs lurch. "Ahh- ugh... I can work with that."

Fumiko laughed, too, although she wasn't really exactly sure what she was laughing about- but Mai seemed happy, if not still in pain. It was going to be hard to keep her down in her hospital bed, but Fumiko knew without even running diagnostic that in her condition, her sister shouldn't be lifting a gallon of milk, let alone be training at all.

The caravan lurched suddenly; stopping and nearly sending her sliding off the seat, but she caught herself at the last second, confused. They couldn't be anywhere near any kind of teahouse, and at best they'd only been traveling for a little less than a day, so why were they stopping?

Unless they were being attacked... but then Fumiko assumed she would be hearing a lot more noise if they were being attacked. She stood, a little wobbly from exhaustion, and opened the curtain, leaning out with her hand on the wood for balance.

Squinting, she looked ahead of the escort of ninja and the front of the caravan, into the recently receding line of trees- as in, four in the entire grassy clearing. She leaned out a little more, ignoring her sister's warning not to lose her balance.

And saw, barely, the three figures standing no less than three or four yards away from the first of her escorts' ninja.

They weren't under a canopy of leaves and branches anymore, and it wasn't nighttime yet, so there was still plenty of light. Not as much as there would be in a day's time as they got closer to Suna, and with less breeze, but there was plenty of sunlight to see by.

And what she saw, firstly and foremost, was a shock of dark red hair.

Gaara was storming across the plain, and it was like the sun set his hair on fire. From here, she couldn't see his expression, just his bloodred clothes and bloodred hair. Just behind him followed Kankuro and Temari, all three with their weapons on their backs.

Fumiko, in her surprise but also completely on purpose, let herself slide off the edge to the ground. The impact was jarring on her stump, but she really didn't care, not even when Mai yelled "Fumiko, what-" because instead of two days away she could reach him in half a minute, and right now she would have to lose her other leg to stay put.

As it turned out, it was less than half a minute, because the Sand Siblings blurred and vanished in a half-second shunshin that swept the grass apart until they were at the front of the escort, the first squad on ninja a few feet ahead of the caravan. She could- feel him now, that dark swirly red-blue that settled over her like a cold, heavy blanket.

Now she could see his face, and she saw his eyes snap to the side where she was- because obviously he'd sensed her chakra at the exact same moment- and he was gone again, much to the very vocal surprise of the escort, although neither Temari nor Kankuro moved.

Fumiko's hair blew back away from her face in a split second, a few strays curling over her shoulders to flutter against her back, as Gaara stopped in front of her, very nearly, she realized only after he was paused an inch from her person, bowling her over. His halt had kicked up the breeze that blew against her hair and her clothes and she threw herself forward that last inch-

He gripped her for a moment, not nearly long enough, the cool skin of his nose sliding against her neck, and then pulled her away forcibly by the shoulders. Fumiko, startled, blinked and realized looking at his eyes that he was angry and he was scared and there was disbelief spelled all over his face.

"Gaara? What are y- mm-mmm..." She cut off as Gaara took her face in both hands and kissed her hard in front of the approaching caravan and their friends and everyone, despite the eyes boring at all sides, rougher than he ever had before. His tongue skimmed her teeth and slipped past them. "Mnnn."

He broke away and mumbled, "I thought you were dead," against her lips, and before Fumiko could respond or breathe he kissed her again. Fumiko was pretty sure by now most in their company had turned away, but she could hear the curtain rustling. Mai, probably, sensing Gaara's chakra. "I thought you were dead." Hard, angry. She was running out of air but didn't try to pull back. "Thought you were- dead."

Stunned, Fumiko could only breathe as he did, panting, though not completely from the kiss alone. His eyes swirled, teal on teal, aquamarine. She was entranced by the swirling and stared because she knew they were for her.

He was going to be so mad.

But at least she would be here to see it.

"Well," Mai said finally in her slightly hoarse voice, making Gaara blink and break the stare. "If you'd showed up like thirteen or so hours ago, she would've been. Well, she was."

...

~ Gaara smiled, once, looking down at the present she'd just shoved into his arms. Whatever it was didn't have a consistent shape- the bright red wrapping paper was misshapen. "What is it?" ~

...

Gaara, at this particular moment, didn't really give a damn who was looking.

He would later, and would probably be a little embarrassed at his rash exit of Sunagakure without telling anyone at all and probably leaving the village officials in a state of confusion and general pissed-off-ness. It was a given that the message runner had informed the council of his rather abrupt disappearance.

But right now, he was still in a state of realizing that he had been completely and entirely right.

Fumiko had died. Actually stone-cold died.

And now she was alive, breathing and talking in his probably too-tight hold, arms wrapped around her biceps and her torso, legs up on the caravan seat and completely dwarfing hers, which were criss-crossed identical to his, and they fit like a nesting doll. Her back was pressed up against his chest and stomach, and he could feel it moving as she spoke, only half-focused on the words.

He was holding her, and to hell with everything else.

Mai was on the other side of the caravan, joining in every now and then. If she got any closer, the unsettled restless sand- that he wasn't, actually, consciously controlling- would probably cut up her feet, shoes or no shoes.

The younger Mitsuwa was a mess, but she'd waved off his initial distracted concerns with a wave of her unrestrained hand. "This? This is nothing," she'd said. "You should've seen me before they patched me up."

"Mai tried to use a Katon, but the Akatsuki- the Animal Path, right?" Fumiko asked, trailing off from her recount. At Mai's half-nod, she continued. "The Animal path summoned another giant centipede and it went over my head and she couldn't. The path kept on asking me if I knew where Uzumaki Naruto was, and I kept saying no-"

"But you did know," Gaara said, voice whispery despite his intentions.

"Well, yeah. He was at Mount Myoboku, training with the toads." Fumiko bit her lip in thought; Gaara saw it because he was craning his neck over her shoulder to see her face. "So the Akatsuki-"

"You should've told it," Gaara murmured, unable to call the Akatsuki a her. 

Fumiko frowned thoughtfully. "Well, part of the reason why I didn't is because I was scared and it really just didn't even cross my mind to tell her. Anyway she probably would have killed me whether I told her or not, so I guess the rest of me knew that much."

"No, Gaara," Mai said before he could protest any further, one tired brown eye sliding open. "She did exactly right. I mean, if someone had told those guys where Naruto was, chances were they would've left. Naruto would've never fought them, the Peins would still be at large, and nobody would've been brought back- including her."

Brought back. They still hadn't explained how she'd been brought back.

Gaara sighed, a semi-distressed hiss that slipped through his teeth, but he just rested his chin on Fumiko's shoulder. When he said nothing else, Fumiko shrugged, dipping Gaara's head up and then back down, and continued. "The Akatsuki, she..."

Gaara noticed the look she shared with Mai, both of their expressions almost tense. "She, what?" he prompted, arms tightening, further trapping her arms against her sides.

"Well, she killed me, I think," Fumiko said at last. "I heard Mai yelling, and then... not. And then it was just really dark. You were right about that part. But there was someone there for me, with a light of some kind, and we talked some. I don't remember everything though..."

"I can take on from here," Mai said. "I'm falling asleep anyway, and you were dead."

Gaara flicked his eyes to hers. Unconsciously, it seemed, she straightened a little, wincing at whatever pain surged from her broken ribs and torn flesh. "I dunno exactly what happened for a while, because that centipede thing smashed me through a wall and a floor and into a basement. I was pretty messed up, broken arm, broken ribs, and, well..." She shrugged noncommittally. "It stabbed me bad. You could literally see my stomach."

"What happened, then?" Gaara asked, because as far as he could tell there wasn't a gaping hole in his best friend's younger sister.

"I set off the flare in my pack. Good idea, by the way, that. Anyway, I don't know how long it was until Eishi found me and brought me Katsuyu, I was kind of out of it and-"

"Katsuyu?" Gaara's eyes narrowed. "Lady Hokage's summons?"

"Yeah, that," Mai agreed. "Anyway, after that, the head Pein thing- Uh, the Deva Path- it used some kind of repelling jutsu to blow up the Leaf village."

...

~ "It'll take you three seconds to figure it out, but that's no fun!" Fumiko declared, laughing. The cone shaped party hat was tilted, and she tugged on the elastic string against her neck. "Guess! Three guesses!" ~

...

The rest of the trip was long and for the most part, uneventful.

Fumiko had fallen asleep at some point, comforted by Gaara's low rumble of a voice and the feel of his skin, although she wouldn't say his shivering hadn't disconcerted her. She had yet to ask how he'd known to come after them.

Anyway, by the time she finally woke up, it was to a medic shining lights in her eyes.

She blinked in surprise, eyelids slipping out of the man's grip as he startled back a little. Vision a little blurry, Fumiko looked around, confused, and realized that she'd slept all the way through the rest of their two day trip and now, somehow, she was in a room in Sunagakure's hospital.

On the other side of the bed, unlike her left arm- which was draped alongside her leg above the blankets, probably so as not to dislodge the blood pressure cuff on her forearm- her right was pulled towards the edge of the bed. It took another few seconds for her to distinguish the coolness of skin over the coolness of the sheets, and once she had, Fumiko let her head fall to the right with a lopsided smile.

Gaara blinked at her, both his hands curled around her one, which was pulled up to his face. He was leaning on the bedside on his elbows.

Through the closed window there was barely any light. She knew that despite the bright fluorescent bulbs flickering against the ceiling. Fumiko had spent much too much time in these rooms to not be able to tell at least whether it was morning, day or night.

She said, "Good... night?" Her voice cracked, once, on the good, and then it cleared. "Gaara."

"Morning," he corrected, but he smiled a little against her fingers, a tiny one-sided quirk of his lips, no teeth. That Gaara-smile she'd loved so much growing up. Another thing she'd thought she'd never see again. Fumiko smiled wider in response. "It's nearly four in the morning."

"Fumiko-sama, how do you feel?" the medic said and she almost flinched, having forgotten he was there. His voice was light, and she recognized it- as she recognized almost all the hospital staff's voices. She let her eyes wander up to his face, then grinned.

"Kazuma!" she greeted happily. "How long have I been sleeping?"

"You just got back last night," he said, bemused at her sudden liveliness. "So, no more than three days. But, how are you feeling? According to Mai-chan and Gaara-sama's reports, you..." Kazuma hesitated. "... died?"

"I'm hungry," she said thoughtfully, not bothering to move the hand Gaara held, but raising up her other to gesture uselessly with her fingers. Then she yawned, and her left hand came down to cover her mouth. "'N kinda muzzy, but I'm not tired, just been sleeping too long."

Gaara's thumbs moved against the back of her hand, lips on her knuckles. "You woke up a few times," he said evenly if not slightly slurred. "But you never stayed awake long enough to eat anything solid."

"No ill effects?" Kazuma said with a touch of curiosity mixed with his concern before she could ask Gaara if he'd been here all night. "Do you feel any stiffness? Nauseous, at all?"

He was going off of all Gaara's previous symptoms from being dead, but Fumiko felt fine. Starving, but fine. She wasn't really tired, and there was that pressure in her stomach that she felt all the time now, so she wasn't even all that worried about anything in particular, or maybe that was just her coming-out-of-sleep-fullness.

"Nope."

"Is there pain anywhere?" He was already skritching words across his clipboard. "Or any part of you that feels particularly cold?"

"Nuh-uh." Fumiko paused. "Did you run a diagnostic-"

"So far as we can tell, your children are perfectly healthy," he said quickly to reassure her. "Despite everything, I might add. Mai-chan mentioned their brief passing."

"That might've been what saved them," she said. "Can I get up?"

Kazuma finally smiled, expression clearing, and it was like the clouds drifted off his face at once. "Of course, Fumiko-sama. Please, move slowly, but aside from that, you should be okay to leave as soon as Lord Kazekage finishes the paperwork."

Fumiko sat up normally. Like magic. There was no weakness in any of her limbs or muscles that she hadn't had before, no soreness. She just sat up, legs pulling up into a criss cross to make it easier to sit all the way up with her stomach. She realized her prosthetic was gone. Before she could say a word, Gaara disappeared from her hand.

Startled, Fumiko's eyes flickered to his side of her hospital bed and realized he had bent down to the side. When he came back up, he had her sock and prosthetic in both hands. She paused for a half moment, blinking, before smiling all the way up to her eyes and taking them with a pleased little giggle.

Gaara helped her up, a steady, unwavering force on her elbow and shoulder. They left, Fumiko waving back at Kazuma, who gave a little wave back as they left the little almost-white sandy room that smelled like antiseptic, and Fumiko found herself reveling in the way they walked, so close that their shoulders bumped and rubbed, just like they always had.

Well, it was more like her shoulder was bumping his arm, but she digressed. It was like Gaara's revival all over again- unconsciously noting and marveling on every touch, every casual word, getting lost in the moment and suddenly realized hey I can feel this again, I can be this again.

It wasn't all casual and back to normal, though. Gaara was still perfectly anxious, eyes writhing thoughtfully. He had his gourd strapped to his back, which was another major sign, because no matter what that gourd made a lot of people nervous, so whenever he came into places like this he took it off and leaned it somewhere accessible but mostly invisible.

Of course she'd noticed he'd had it on, inactive, in the dingy little hospital chair he'd sat in, despite how much it had to have weighed or despite how much chakra he would've had to waste to keep it light.

But for once, Fumiko didn't let it bother her. Gaara could worry. Sometimes it made him feel better to worry. And it made sense for him to be worried- she'd died, after all, she and their unborn twins. Fumiko would've been the worst kind of hypocrite to try and make him relax, which wouldn't happen fully for... a while. Probably.

"Where's Mai?" she exclaimed, stopping in the middle of the hallway. "She wasn't there."

"Sleeping." Gaara muttered. He'd stopped at the same time as her, attune to every one of her movements. Fumiko wondered if, as a shinobi, he could hear her breaths and heartbeat while he walked and talked. "She's on anesthetic," he answered before she could ask. "They had to operate on something. The way they explained it... I think they were taking out a part of her liver. Not to mention all the broken things she didn't even notice."

Fumiko shook her head. "I didn't see her at the worst. Only Eishi saw her before Katsuyu started to heal her. It makes sense, though, what with where she got stabbed. That centipede the Pein summoned opened up her stomach, too."

"She'll be fine," he said quietly.

"I know." Fumiko laughed. "It's Mai, Gaara. What else would you expect? She'll be back to training in no time."

Gaara snorted, a harsh sound that echoed with their resuming footsteps in the empty yellow-white walls. "She's got a wrapped up arm, foot, hand, and ribcage, and she just got a part of her liver removed and Kami knows what else. She better not be back to training in no time."

She laughed again, amused, a clear burst of titters that made Gaara smile. "How's Kankuro and Temari? Are they back to their normal stuff now, or helping you out with something, since you're here?"

"They were here, actually," he said, eyes rolling to the ceiling like he was remembering something nostalgic. "You just missed them. They were moving around from your room to Mai's after she got out of surgery ever since we came here."

"Was Mai conscious?"

"She was." Gaara smiled again, though his half-smile turned into something more like a smirk. "She argued with the medics all the way to intensive care."

Fumiko grinned, then was struck with a sudden thought as they rounded the corner to the stairs that would lead them down to the lobby. A door flashed by to her left; B-216. "Where's her team? Eishi and Shiragiku and Otokaze?"

"Her teammates are with her." Gaara shook his head, almost shaggy hair falling into his eyes. "Otokaze is at the Tower giving a report to the Council with Temari and Kankuro." He hesitated for a second, thinking; his teal eyes jumped back down to his hand. His finger twined with hers. Fumiko hummed at the contact, and she would've pushed closer if she didn't need space to limp. "We should let them know you're awake."

"Yeah." Fumiko frowned. "You aren't going to get in trouble for leaving, are you? Did you get permission or something?"

Gaara shook his head with an audible, full sigh that probably emptied out all his lung capacity, judging from the way he had to take another complete breath before speaking again. "Probably. I just... left."

"How'd you know?" Fumiko squeezed his hand. "That I was in trouble, I mean."

"I don't know, exactly." Gaara's voice was quiet as they descended the stairs, with him always staying one step below her in case she fell, holding up his arm so she could reach the handrail without being pulled down. "I just knew. Something in me just-"

"Snapped?" Fumiko's voice pinged through the mostly empty stairwell with surprising clarity, and Gaara's voice faded. He just nodded wordlessly. There was an absent sort of echoey thumping sound as one other person, a medic clothed in white, ascended the stairs. Gaara moved to the side to let him pass, and the medic, nose buried in a file, didn't even seem to notice.

When his footsteps faded, Gaara said, "Like you knew, right?"

"Hmm." Fumiko hummed in response. "You know, they say soulmates can tell whenever the other one's in trouble."

At this, predictably, everything controlled and normal in Gaara's face shattered and he blushed, looking down as they reached the bottom step. Fumiko grinned at his so close to mopey "Since when do you know about soulmates?"

...

~ He squeezed it, humming thoughtfully to humor her. "Is it..." It really was a strange thing, even through the layers of paper he could feel something like a wire circle. "Is it some kind of necklace?" ~

...

As the days passed, Fumiko went to two different examinations, finally did those interviews that had been shoring up on her calendar for a while now- although now she had more requests than ever, since somehow something had leaked about her temporary death- and visited Mai at least once a day with something sweet hidden up her sleeve or in her bag because apparently hospital food sucked.

Well, not 'apparently'. Fumiko knew this to be true.

Mai was recovering faster than anyone- well, the doctors anyone, everyone else believed it perfectly fine- expected, skin and organs and bone knitting back together under daily healing sessions, breezing through physical therapy without so much as a grunt of pain (although there was a lot of annoyed sighing.)

Her sister took every medication she was given except for Vicoden or morphine, because, according to Mai, it dulled her senses and made her feel wacky and she would rather stab than hug an enemy, thanks. Kankuro admitted that it was probably his fault and he'd heard all her drunk-happy rants on the drugs and teased her incessantly afterword.

Fumiko figured it was probably a little bit of both.

Pushing open the door to Mai's recovery room, she was immediately met with an exclamation of "Open the goddamn window, at least, Kami, I'm not going to die of some horrible disease because the sand brings in dust motes with friggin' bacteria!"

"Mai-san, please-" her nurse tried, then ducked the empty meal tray. It clattered against the wall a few inches away from Fumiko's face and she blinked before closing the door behind her. Mai's dark look shifted into a near beam over the dodged shoulders of the medic who'd probably been checking her vitals.

"Fumiko! Sister mine! Please tell these idiots that I'm going absolutely bonkers and to open the window and by the way I really, really hate the smell of antiseptic!"

...

~ "Wrong!" Fumiko grinned. "You'll never ever guess, Gaara, not in a million years!" ~

...

Eventually Mai was released.

All in all her injury count amounted to a grand total of: one fractured humerus bone, two broken fingers, a sprained collarbone, a busted tarsal bone in her left foot, a practically uncountable amount of torn/twisted/cut muscles, two broken and one fractured ribs, one half healed impaled liver, stomach, and pancreas, countless cuts and gashes and a few brand-new scars.

Joy.

Her left arm was in a sling, left foot in a boot, wrappings and gauze all over her entire torso like half a mummy and butterfly bandages galore for some of the deep-enough-that-they-hadn't-healed-yet scratches the medics hadn't really bothered to close up in favor of other things.

She had to walk with a crutch- held in the hand with both broken fingers- but it was still better than a wheelchair- to take the pressure off her foot, and she was armed with prescriptions for five billion different kinds of anti-inflammatory, ant-bacterial, anti-etc serious drugs and a bottle of Advil.

It was funny that she had bruises everywhere marring her tan skin, especially now that Fumiko's were completely gone.

Her everything hurt like hell, but at least she could go outside and feel the wind in her hair and her clothes and the sand between her teeth and the grit between the toes of at least one foot. And... well, she had to admit, she liked the looks she got walking down the streets. Like, what did she go through? And she's walking on her own? Strong.

And then there were all the curious little kids with delusions of grandeur about shinobi life, the ones who either knew she was a ninja or noticed the headband on her sword sheaths, running amuck about her feet and ambushing her on the way to market with general cries of "Whoa! What happened? Did you get in some kind of epic ninjutsu battle?! Did you win?! Was it an S-ranked nuke nin like Akatsuki was?!"

Her answers usually ran along the lines of a broken record "I know, I look shitty, don't I? (Eh, they knew bad words anyway.) I got in a fight. Yeah! Uhh, no. Yes. Yes, it was. It was an Akatsuki, actually!"

Okay, so maybe she enjoyed it. A little bit. And her own Genin class was curious as hell.

Most of the time she hobbled after her older sister, who actually looked pretty pregnant now, through the Tower and the village when she was out and about. Gaara had finally developed that little bit of overprotectiveness that Temari had predicted, although Mai was more of the opinion that it was because of her pretty recent death and not necessarily her pregnancy, although that definitely helped.

Fumiko didn't really seem to mind being ordered around and overcoddled, being told to sit down or stay in bed or not to leave to Tower or to hole up in the office and help her out. Personally, Mai would've already been either clawing out her eyes or digging an escape out of the basement with a spoon, but her sister seemed perfectly content to sit in a chair and work on her nursery murals or lie in the bed and just eat and eat and eat peaches and dates and various junk foods, weird combinations, and ice cream.

She definitely had her moments- when she needed to go to the bathroom and someone tried to make her lie back down, when she was hungry and didn't want to move, when her paint went wrong, when they ran out of something she wanted, once when the rain came, because she wanted to feel the sunlight through her bedroom window.

But usually, Fumiko was pretty passive, laughing and happy. Sometimes, if you caught her at the right times, one could catch her talking or singing quietly under her breath. It was... nice. Normal. Eating was harder for Mai to pull off than it had been a week or so ago before the invasion of Pein, and she would pick at a fruit or strip of jerky for an entire day, but man, her sister could eat the village out of it's wealth.

It wasn't like she had anything better to do than keep her company. Sometimes she hung out with Kankuro in his studio-bedroom, yeah, and she went back home at the end of the day (Explaining her injuries and the reason for Fumiko's hospitalization to their mother and father was almost as painful as her constant stomachache) but a pretty big chunk of her restless days was spent in the Tower.

Right now she was sitting at the kitchen table of the Tower, slung up arm resting on the table, the fingers of her good hand tapping incessantly against the tablecloth. It seemed random, but it was actually a good thing for her bones, to move her fingers around, tap them, touch them to her thumb one by one. It twinged, but she'd taken Advil not an hour before, so it wasn't really that bad.

Her mother sat across from her almost awkwardly as Fumiko buzzed about in the kitchen, throwing together some rice and a suspiciously sweet smelling something in a pan that probably had peaches or some kind of sugar fruit in it.

It was kind of weird, seeing her mother in the Tower. She'd apparently taken the day off to come visit them in their natural habitat, and had just kind of showed up unexpectedly to say hi. She seemed so small here- Mitsuwa Hanako shrunk in the big building with it's winding halls and massive kitchen compared to the quaint little apartment house Mai had grown up seeing her in.

She was wearing her pale brown haori, hair tied back into a long, low ponytail. There were bags in her eyes, mild like they always had been, from night shifts and exhausting work. But she was smiling, even if it was a little forced.

"So, how have you been doing, Fumiko?" her mother asked at last to break the hum of her sister's off-tune voice. "I meant to visit Gaara as well, but he looked busy."

"He is!" Fumiko flipped the pan, sending rice into the air and then back down again, before adding soy sauce. "You can come up with me when I bring him lunch, though. He doesn't mean to not notice people, honest."

"It's fine." Hanako laughed, leaning back in her chair as she finally started to relax. "Gaara's always been that type. Even when he did his Academy homework, half the time he couldn't hear a word I was saying."

Fumiko hummed in agreement, stirring the sweet pan. "Don't tell anyone, but Gaara's trying to set up a super-secret Kage meeting. To deal with Akatsuki, I mean." She poured the rice out into three waiting bowls on the long kitchen counter and dropped it in the sink to get it out of the way, but continued to stir whatever else she was making.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's stressing him out since the other Kage aren't even really listening to him."

Their mother frowned. "Why not?"

Mai snorted, leaning forward and resting her chin on her not-broken arm. It hurt her ribs, but she didn't really particularly care. The other Kage were becoming an entirely different problem than they originally posed- from 'possibly going to war' to 'possibly not even getting a reply back.' "Because they're all stupid, that's why. Like the Council. Ugh."

"What?" her mother asked, confused. "The Kage of other Lands-"

"They think Gaara's too young to be Kazekage," Fumiko said. "You know, immature, inexperienced, and the stuff. I'm not surprised... Gaara is only sixteen. But it's still kinda bitter that most of them won't even respond to our messages."

"That doesn't make sense." Her mother frowned. "If anyone were to look at Suna's records, allies, or financial incline and trade, then it would be really obvious that Suna's better of than it was with the previous Kazekage."

"Yeah, but they don't see it that way."

"Because they're losers." Mai shrugged at her mother's sharp look. "What? They are. Being a Kage doesn't make you suddenly not a loser. I mean, like, Gaara's dad was the Fourth."

The sharp look withered into exasperation at her roundabout jab at Rasa, but she didn't say anything. The Fourth may have been strong, but really, the best thing he'd ever really historically done was gained magnet release, quell Shukaku once or twice, and sold his gold continually. He was a financial crutch more than he was Kazekage.

Not to mention his stupid move, siding with Orochimaru against Konohagakure. That would go down in strategy and history books on what not to do as one of the worst mistakes ever, aside from maybe the White Fang of Konoha's botched mission.

But that botched mission was pretty damn respectable, at least. Rasa had just been plain stupid.

...

~ They were sitting on the wall, waiting for the sunrise to mark the first light of his eleventh birthday. He was going to be in trouble later for sneaking out, and so was she, but the moment was too perfect for Gaara to really care. "Maybe I should just open it, then, if I'll never guess." ~

...

Gaara was happy to see Mrs. Mitsuwa, but was absolutely mortified to realize that she'd walked into his office, had an entire conversation with Fumiko before leaving with Fumiko to the kitchen to make lunch, and he hadn't even noticed until they came back with lunch and he looked up, asked, and his friend explained the situation.

"It's fine, Gaara," Mrs. Mitsuwa said. There was laughter in her voice and in the smile lines about her eyes. She was carrying the food tray itself, and Fumiko dropped down next to him in her stool with the thermos, sighing happily as she did so.

She clunked it down next to him and promptly stole the paper from his fingers, grabbing up her brush, dipping it in ink humming happily as she leaned over to work. Gaara blinked at her, then looked at her mother, then picked up the thermos. "How have you been?" he asked, picking at the lid. "It's been a while."

""Too long, really." There were no other chairs, but his almost-mother didn't seem to really mind, merely placing the tray down carefully where Fumiko pointed. "Goodness, look at all these papers."

"Yes." Gaara finally managed to open the top, and smelled something like green tea, but he didn't drunk any, smiling a little awkwardly. He knew better than to ask why she was here- she was enough like her daughter for Gaara to know that she didn't actually need anything, and had just stopped by to see them. "I've been busy. I trust you've been well?"

"Of course!" She smiled. "Work's been busy as usual. Fukuda just got a raise, so I can take off the night shift for a while."

Fumiko said nothing, just continued humming without so much as a stutter at the mention of her father. Gaara wondered if it was because she didn't care, didn't let herself react, or if she just plain couldn't hear them anymore. Gaara finally took a drink, blinking at the light cloud of steam that wafted into his face as he did so. "How is he?"

"Fine." Both of Mrs. Mitsuwa's eyebrows rose at his question, but she didn't say anything about it. "The real question is, how are you two doing? You look like you're losing weight. Isn't my daughter feeding you?"

...

~ "Nooo!" Fumiko shot him an overly exaggerated look of despair and ultimate betrayal. "Guess!" ~

...

Eventually she left, waving back at them. Fumiko waved back beside him with her chopsticks, goodbye muffled by a mouthful of rice. By the time she swallowed it back her mother was gone, the door closing behind her. Gaara purposely followed her chakra down until she reached the guest floor, then let it all fall back into a gentle haze.

Fumiko, ambidextrous as she was, was eating with one hand and working with the other, being careful not to drop any rice grains on the documents. She was filling something out, a full response to some request or another that couldn't just be signed and put up.

Today, Gaara realized now that he wasn't in a work-induced waking coma, was wearing a new-looking pink maternity shirt with half-sleeves and a lower neckline, with baggy blue drawstring shorts that looked almost like cut in half sweatpants. It didn't really match, but that didn't really matter.

It hadn't even been two weeks since she died, and here they were, working. Well, he was just eating, she was the only one actually working, but that wasn't the point.

Thank Kami she was her, because Gaara was pretty sure any other self-respecting person in the Elemental Nations would not be putting up with his shit. And really, some rational part of him knew that he was probably going overboard with everything. But Fumiko went with it, just like she went with everything, like she was floating down a river into rapids and thought it was all just part of the fun.

Well, most of the time. Sometimes she had rages or burst into random tears he didn't know how to deal with. But those moments were few and far between, and afterward usually she just wanted to cuddle.

Mai was always around now, seemingly everywhere at once- with Kankuro, with Fumiko, with various chuunin and jonin, in the kitchen or his office or wandering the halls with various people. Once she'd been in his and Fumiko's bedroom for no real reason other than to look at the ceiling murals. And while she rose her eyebrows at their interactions whenever they were together, she didn't say anything about his responses to things, give or take a few snarky sarcastic comments.

"-mnph, mm-ra."

Gaara startled when Fumiko poked his cheek. "What?"

She swallowed another mouthful of rice. It was drowned in something dark but sweet; Gaara couldn't figure out what it was. Probably some new thing she'd come up with on the spot. "I said, 'what are you thinking about, Gaara?'"

"Oh," he said, and before he could think to check his mouth, said "You."

She beamed and nudged his shoulder with hers. There was a clatter as she hooked her prosthetic against a wooden rung, pulling her foot and other leg up to rest against the rungs of the stool. "Really?"

He flushed; could feel the stain all over his face. In lieu of answering, he stuck another mouthful of food between his teeth, trying in vain to ignore her amused peal of laughter at his expression, looking down at the papers and oh, that was interesting- plant consensus in the greenhouses...

"I was thinking about you, too," she declared, then paused. "Partly about you, since I was working," she amended. "But your face was all super-serious, like back when I used to spy on your classes that teachers didn't like me in and you were acting like you couldn't see me. So I was thinking about some of your old spars and stuff."

Gaara blinked, eyes going from the paperwork sprawled across his desk to the side of her face. There was one big half of a smile on the side he could see, and her head was tilted as she resumed working on the report response. "Were you?"

"Yeah. You know, you've really gotten better since then." She dotted a period, then dropped the brush back down on the desktop to wait for it to dry so she could file it away. "But I was also thinking about your new gourd, you know, the one we made after you died? Have you really worked with that at all?"

"I haven't really had the time?" He accidentally phrased it like a question, confused at the sudden shift in the conversation. "Uh, not really."

"Huh." She seemed satisfied with that answer and picked up all the response papers, tapping the pages into a thin stack before folding the corners of the top left to make them stay and dropping them into the 'going out/foreign affairs pile.

There were a lot of piles.

...

~ Gaara really had no clue what it was. "I dunno, a..." he held it up to eye level to inspect it's flatness. "Something you made?" ~

...

The first thing that healed all the way was her foot, which was great, because Mai could finally ditch the cumbersome boot and crutch. It still felt funny, like just- not right, but it didn't hurt or twinge at all. She left the offending pieces at the doctor's office.

The wonders of having a bored medic sister.

Anyway, she was less confined to the Tower. She could walk farther than just short distances before getting frustrated with the action, she could shunshin over to her house without falling over, she could roof-hop again.

She still couldn't train, of course, because her arm was still in a sling and her fingers and ribs and collarbone were still sort of broken, couldn't pound away the boredom with a one-two-three on her bags.

Fumiko was sleeping- in the middle of the day- Gaara was being a worrywart because she hadn't done that since his death, the other two Sand Siblings were doing something, Mai didn't know. It was a weekend day, which meant that er father would be home, so she didn't really want to go there, anyway.

Not that he would try to initiate much more than small talk. But still. Mai wasn't exactly the type of person to entertain awkward, unwanted conversations.

For most of those reasons, Mai found herself at a worn old apartment house with a For Rent sign in the window just beside the door, glancing down at the piece of paper in her hand.

The day had been spent in the Archives and the citizenship records room at the Tower (not that Gaara needed to know anything about that) and asking about on the streets, flagging down ninja she knew at least by acquaintance, chatting (dumb small-talk) with some of the people running stands in the market. Newspaper-guy looked like he wanted to drive her off with a rolled up Sunday paper, so Mai had moved right past him.

Eventually, with a few false leads and busted heads, she'd wound up- here.

It was a sect of the village composed of almost entirely civilians, the prudish ones that would pay more just to avoid rubbing elbows with shinobi, living next door to a ninja. It was good cover, Mai supposed, for an ANBU, although she could do without the condescending/frightened/scornful/curious eyes of everyone in the sect.

Mai's eyes flickered once more to the window. No light, no one home. She could've gleaned that from the For Rent sign, but there were all sorts of chances that there could've been a squatter or a realstate person or something of the like who, in the civilian section, probably wouldn't take kindly to a battered, battleworn-looking shinobi strolling in.

The door was locked, but two senbon and a handful of swear words fixed that. It wasn't as hard as she'd thought it'd be to pick a lock with one casted arm and two broken fingers.

The door creaked as it swung open, a shearing sound like it hadn't been budged since her taicho's death five or six months ago. It was dark, and as light shafted into the room around her silhouette shadow, she wrinkled her nose at the old, musty moth smell of dust and food decay. Ugh. Why hadn't anyone cleaned it out? Jeez, Sunagakure had a population problem, why would they leave a house unoccupied like this?

Disturbed sand and dusty motes swirled into the air from the carpet as she walked, probably a shade of brown before it morphed grey with dust and age. The door closed behind her, swallowing the room in an almost complete darkness, save for the sharp spotlight of focused sunlight from the window. The glaring Suna sun didn't exactly diffuse light- windows were like big magnifying glasses.

It didn't really matter, her senses were good, and so were her eyes once they'd adjusted to the soft darkness. Mai stepped around the dark outline of a coffee table, surverying the tiny space. Kami, what was this- the living room was almost part of the kitchen. The hallway the right of the fridge to her right probably led to a bedroom and a bathroom, but that was it.

There wasn't much to trip on- a couch by the door with a coffee table in front of it, a desk pushed up to the wall next to the oven- which seemed to be the boundary between he kitchen and the rest of the house- a few appliances in the cooking area. There were bowls on the floor at the side of the couch.

Cat. Hiyobanshi Yami had owned a cat.

The wallpaper was peeling, but seemed pretty well-maintained for such an old print, like an antique marked with age. The culprit of the musty old food smell was a bowl of super dry, shriveled fruits on the kitchen counter- Mai sneezed at the dark, sweet, rotting scent.

She ignored it, though, and moved on towards the thin hallway, dragging her fingers through the dust on the edge of the counter that tapered off just before the arch. It was thick, and coated the gauzy bandages that tied her middle and ring finger together. The hallway was bare- no shadowy squares and rectangles, no memories hung on the walls or anywhere else in the dark house.

The bedroom door was already opened. Mai was sure that if it hadn't been, it would have shrieked just like the other one when it opened.

She paused just outside the entry, letting one hand rest on the door frame. A pair of worn old civilian sandals sat limply by her feet, pushed up against the wall, probably in favor of his shinobi wear. Mai knew that if she looked, found a light source and prowled, searched; tapped the walls and listened to the floor and wiped the dust away with the pads of her fingers, she would find all the secrets of an ANBU, all the nooks and crannies, unused, forgotten clothes, possibly IDs, classified paperwork he'd never disposed of...

Maybe another day, when her body wasn't all beat up. Maybe someday in the future when it wasn't hard enough to just cross the threshold into his bedroom. This had to be her Taicho's house- it was empty, bare essentials and a few books on the coffee table to make it believable. Alone.

What was she scared of? That she would get caught? Nah, that- she could get out of here in seconds. Already she knew every exit- the front door, the fake window in the kitchen that probably pushed out. And there was no one here. There was someone in the house in the other half of the base of this building, but no one in here.

Finally she huffed a breath and stomped inside.

It was almost anticlimactic, really. It was exactly what she expected, in a way- just like the rest of this apartment, it was decorated with bare essentials- a queen size bed without a headboard, a nightstand with a lamp and a pair of forgotten glasses, probably for reading, and a dogeared book with a broken blue spine. She drifted over to it to read the title, taking in as she did so the rest of the bedroom- a nightstand with a mirror, a closet, and in the far corner, a rank smelling litterbox.

It was an epic. Some long poetry thing she remembered being on the AP track reading list in the Academy for the brainiacs who skipped entire grades.

SEIREITŌ was emblazoned in small but capital silver letters atop a black-and-white photo of an older looking man. She flipped the the dogeared page almost absently, thumb trailing down the japanese. It was all written in cramped, perfectly cut stanzas.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing...

Her lips pursed. Of course he was a Furimawasu nerd...

She snapped the book shut, but tucked it anyway into her pack for later reference, careful not to stick it with the razor wire or her exploding notes. Instead she tucked it into a separate pocket that held her sealing scrolls.

The entire house smelled gross, between the fruit and the undeniable smell of a fridge with it's electricity cut off, and the litterbox in the bedroom. There was something else too, that made her hair stand up against her skin. And it was dark, and unless she wanted to rifle through his closet there was nothing else to be had here.

There was a clatter behind her and Mai jumped, whirled. There wasn't anyone else in the house with her, she knew there wasn't, there was no way she hadn't sensed-

"Mew."

Mai blinked. Her eyes trailed from the doorway to the ground, then skated across the carpet until they found another set, big and wide and gold-yellow like sand, underneath the dresser. "Shit," she said before she could really think about it, adrenaline still pulsing in her brain. "What are you doing here?"

According to the neighbor she'd talked to, Yami's cat had been old and blind in one eye, and had disappeared after the man's mysterious death. This little shivering thing wasn't Yami's cat, it couldn't be.

She knelt anyway, taking a few hesitant scoots forward so she wouldn't startle the thing, and realized as she did so that that was where the weird smell was coming from- something she'd waved off as spoiled meat from the turned off refrigerator. It hissed at her, the eyes backing further under the furniture.

"Hey, cat. Chill out." If this wasn't stupid she didn't know what was. "Ow, goddammit, stupid ribs... cat, get out of there."

Cat didn't get out of there, so Mai made sure to slide towards the door as she got closer to prevent it's escape and probably subsequent death in the hot Suna world. Gritting her teeth at the twinge in her everything that was broken, she dropped down on her stomach to the floor, feeling like an idiot.

Oh, the poor bastard.

There was Yami's cat.

And the four other brothers and sisters that smelled like absolute shit.

The kitten was as grey as the dust all over the house, with a startling pair of liquid-looking golden yellow eyes. It was really just a bag of bones the size of her palm, crouched defensively, hair raised along it's neckline and back, ears pinned against the sides of it's head.

Mai resisted the urge to roll her eyes and hiss back just for the hell of it. "I'm not digging around in there for you," she told it matter-of-factly. "My arms won't go above my head, one hand is busted and so's the other arm."

It hissed at her again.

"What, you want food? Feel free to eat the shit in the kitchen." But she righted herself just enough to slide her bag off her shoulder, kneeling on the floor in front of her Taicho's dresser, and riffed inside for a second. "Do cats even eat jerky? You're carnivores, right?"

She bit off the top of the package, spat it out, and held out the jerky stick in her broken finger hand, resting it on her knee. If it came out it came out.

It came out, and rather quickly considering how pissy it'd been a half second ago.

"How long have you been here, cat?" She watched as it gnawed on the stick, which was actually longer than the cat itself, if you excluded the tail. Mai didn't really know where she was going with this- take it home? The thing looked and smelled like a shit-covered furry bag of fleas.

Sure, why not?

Mai sighed, shouldered her bag and swept up the kitten in one hand. Even squirming, the bastard wasn't even strong enough to hurt her busted fingers, at which Mai rose and eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah," she muttered and heaved back up to her feet, ignoring the protest in her ribcage. She held the jerky stick in her other hand, giving the kitten easy access to it. "Let's go."

...

~ Fumiko bumped his shoulder with hers, an act that anyone else would've found utterly terrifying from this high up on the edge of a ledge, but Gaara had his gourd on his back and knew he could catch them both if either one of them fell. "Well of course I made it, but what is it?" ~

...

Fumiko woke with a jolting scream, even as she wondered what she was so scared of.

And then Gaara was there, hands on her face, in her hair, on her shoulders and back as she went to him for comfort. The shivery sheen of fear-sweat cooled from intense heat to a calm swirl of chill like a breeze. Her heartbeat slowed to a dull throb.

"It's fine," he assured her when she started to cry. "Everything's fine."

Later on, she would ask him why he'd laid back down with her when his shirt was all wet. He'd blushed, just a little, before letting it fade and saying with absolute certainty that it was okay and he'd barely even spared it thought.

...

~ Random guessing time. "Is it clothes?" ~

...

Cat had developed a weird habit of climbing up onto her shoulder. It'd only been maybe twelve hours since she'd picked him or her up and brought him or her home, but already it had decided she was some kind of safe zone, and at any moment was prone to randomly zip up the leather of her pants and the fabric of her bag and hang out under her hair.

Her mother had been confused, walking into the bathroom at the sound of a running bath, unused to hearing anything but a shower, to find her arguing rather loudly with a stubborn kitten that was arguing just as loudly back, trying in vain to scramble out of the bath, but eventually gleaned enough to head back into the kitchen and make up some tuna for when Mai came back out with the kitten, triumphant but wet.

So now she'd cleaned it and fed it and didn't really bother finding it a place to sleep since it liked her bed just fine. From what she knew, cats were supposed to be pretty independent and take care of themselves, so that was good.

It also liked her sling, and was light enough that it wasn't really anything but a bit more warmth when it decided to hitch a ride on her broken arm, so she guessed that was fine too. That's what was happening now, as she roof-hopped over the buildings of Suna, trying to find a vet, because Cat really did have fleas, and Mai didn't really have any real food for it, and it probably had rabies.

Fumiko had pointed her in this direction a few hours ago, pleased by the kitten. How she knew where there was a vet, Mai didn't know. Had Asuka ever been there? Maybe that was why.

...

~ "Nope!" ~

...

Fumiko had finally gotten around to pulling the prism out of her bag, and finding necessary supplies to make something out of. She wasn't eight anymore, Fumiko knew how to braid leather into a strong cord and sew a drawstring into cloth to make it a pouch. It only took her ten or maybe fifteen minutes, tops.

She admired the smooth cut glass. It was small, the size of her pinky if not a little thicker. But it cast rainbows across the wall of her bedroom whenever it caught a ray of sunlight, no matter how small, drew starbursts on her skin and her bedspread.

Eventually she dropped it into the little brown pouch and drew up the string to close it before draping the cord over her head and pulling until it rested around her neck.

It wasn't quite the same, of course, as the ultra-thin fishline, nor was it the same weight, but it was an undeniable relief to have something there, something she could pull on, touch, feel, sense. It was grounding and familiar.

And it carried a literal rainbow.

Fumiko left the cuts of leather and cloth on the desk and stood, planning first on a trip to the bathroom, and then to the kitchen for breakfast. Mai had been by not three hours ago, early, right after Gaara had left for work. She kind of wanted to tell Gaara about the adorable little fluffy ball of grey cuteness peering out from the curtain of Mai's black hair, curled on her sister's shoulder.

...

~ "Some kind of half-finished woven basket?" ~

...

Mai didn't speak cat, but she was pretty sure Cat had been cursing like a sailor through all his shots and whining during the mini animal-physical.

Filling out the form had been funny. Name: Cat. Species: Cat. Gender: Uhh... cat?

Cat was a boy, the lady veterinarian informed her. Probably around two or three weeks old, ironically also probably the runt, judging from it's size compared to it's age. The little runt, the only one of it's kin to survive. Irony at it's finest.

She was starting to kind of like Cat. And Furimawasu. He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear: And you all know, security Is mortals' chiefest enemy.

So maybe she had nothing else to do but flip through it while she waited. It wasn't like she understood most of it, but some of the lines sounded neat when they actually made sense. Every damn sentence was like trying to decode an SS ranked message scroll. Still, for a poetry-obsessed civilian, what she did decode led her to believe that whoever Furimawasu was, he'd had some good, solid morals.

Cat, instead of waiting to be picked up as she neared the table he was sitting at, tail swishing happily, leaped the half-foot space, claws digging into her shirt, and scrabbled up her chest to her shoulder, ignoring her startled swears as his claws scraped into her skin. "Stupid animal," she muttered, tapping it's head.

The vet blinked at her. "You said he was a stray-"

"Yeah, I, uh, found him." Totally hadn't been breaking and entering or anything. Mai held up the little slip of paper the receptionist had given her before she'd reentered the examination room. "The mom and stuff were dead. I'll just keep him at home. And give him- uh, this food, yeah. Thanks."

...

~ "What? No!" Fumiko burst into another startled gale of laughter, nearly starting to cry. Gaara cracked another, slightly bigger smile before joining in, albeit much more reservedly. ~

...

"Do you mind?"

Cat continued to purr, muffling her protests.

Literally.

Mai grumbled and pulled him off her face by the scruff with three fingers, dropping him an arms length away by her thigh. He mewled indignantly but was ignored, trying twice more before settling with the space between her side and her bandaged arm, carefully laid out straight.

...

~ "You lose! Open it!" she declared, and so he did, turning it over and picking at the tape. When it gave, he practically rolled whatever it was out of the paper like a scroll, she'd wrapped it so much. What finally fell out into his hands made him blink. ~

...

She'd decided that it didn't matter what she remembered and what she didn't. Fumiko had died, and then come back to life, and that was that. No need to make her nightmares worse than they already had been.

For the first time in a while, Fumiko had one of her favorite dreams: the one where she and Gaara and Mai were in Land-of-Snow, small, with kekkei genkais that let them build forts, shields, and snowballs instantaneously.

...

~ The first thing he registered were the colors: yellows and blues and reds and greens. It was made of sticks, yarn, beads and feathers, and was about the circumference of a cantaloupe. The woven green and blue dyed yarn, with the help of the beads, both made a natural flower shape and spelled out the kanji for love. Feathers that looked suspiciously like the ones Asuka preened off dangled from more blue-green yarn. ~

...

Jyoji really, really didn't feel like being the one that had to go into the Kazekage's room at three seventeen in the morning, even if he had explicitly ordered that if these kind of news came in to inform him immediately.

Maybe he wasn't sleeping. The maids liked to say that some night he was up until the next day's light working away.

He tested the door, opened it silently by accident, and almost sighed at the lack of light.

Actually, anxiety aside, the runner figured he was probably one of the only ones to have ever seen the Kazekage sleeping in his own room. Nobody came into any of the original three Sand Siblings' rooms after hours- or any ninja, really, it was a bad idea to startle a shinobi out of sleep. He personally had almost maimed a few close friends that way...

And now he felt like a spy. Despite the serious nature of his mission, it felt a lot like he was invading the Kazekage's privacy when he realized that they were both sleeping- Gaara-sama and Fumiko-sama, and it looked like at one point they'd been curled together, only now the Lady had rolled towards the end onto her side, limbs sprawled. Her top had ridden up, enough that the Kazekage's hand was flat on skin.

It was dark, a complete darkness unsoftened by light. There wouldn't be any sun for another four hours at least.

How to bring up he was here.

Quickly was probably the best bet. He took a step forward into the carpet of sand, mouth opening, but before he could get a word out, the Kazekage's eyes snapped open, suddenly bright teal blue. For a tenth of a second the sand jumped, spiking to almost knee high before it sunk back down. Jyoji flinched too late, a full-body twitch.

"What is it?" the teenager said quietly, voice sharply clear in the quiet. His hand moved, no longer limp with sleep, farther over Fumiko-sama's side, protectively. Everything in the books you learned as a chuunin pointed to this as a glaring sign of weakness, but something about the calm, hard set of his eyes made him seem even more dangerous than if he'd been alone.

Jyoji, despite every thought racing through his mind, had remained perfectly quiet and still. He straightened. "Kazekage-sama," he said evenly. "We've just received a message from the Raikage. He's decided to call for the Summit himself."

...

~ A dreamcatcher. ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Mai would totally be into Shakespeare, right?


	16. Sharingan

...

~ It'd been too long since she last visited Konoha's hospital. She wanted to see how all the staff were doing. ~

...

It was the first time in... well, a while, that Fumiko woke up alone in her bedroom.

She shot upright, confused, and yawned before rolling off the bed to the floor to find her prosthetic. Once that was secured, she stood, and not caring that she was in her sleepclothes or not, she headed out the door, wiping at her eyes.

Her mind raced. What was it? He hadn't just- forgotten. Something had to have happened. Fumiko didn't wake up from deep sleep for dragonfire, of course he would've left her there if something happened. It couldn't be a threat, there wasn't a guard near her door that she could tell, peeking around the hallway. But then why...

Her confusion only increased when she went straight upstairs to his office and he wasn't there. There weren't even any ANBU so far as she knew, she couldn't sense or see anything at all, just a bunch of stacks of paper, brand-new since yesterday's workload, and the cactus, and the inks and brushes and penholders. Sun filtered in through the sandy glass windows.

Fumiko tugged on the necklace she'd forgotten to take off last night before bed, biting her lip, and turned around, closing the door behind her as she limped to the other side of the floor, where the Kazekage's office- the meeting room- was. If there was something in session then she was about to break probably a lot of rules and be a criminal, but she didn't really care.

Pulling the door open, she caught a snippet of Ebisu's voice saying, "- dangerous to accept, despite your earlier requests, Lord Kaze-"

And then he stopped. Fumiko hadn't even pulled the door back all the way before they noticed she was there, and it was another half second before she could see them all staring at her, and there was Gaara, too, sitting at his chair, fingers steepled. He blinked at her in surprise, once, before letting his face wipe clean again. Kankuro, however, frowned.

"Fumiko," he said. "It's early. What are you doing up?"

Was it? She hadn't stopped to think. She realized, then, that the light coming in through the windows was burned orange. The sunrise, barely. Still, she usually woke up around sunrise. Kankuro knew that. "What's going on?" she asked, wiping at her eyes. "What happened?"

The Elders all exchanged worried looks, as did Kankuro and Gaara. "Fumiko-sama, maybe you should-"

Fumiko didn't exactly ignore the Head's voice- although she actually disliked this one; the one who never appreciated anything Gaara did, who thought he was a botched experiment at best- and took another step inside to let the door close before asking, again, "What happened?"

"The Raikage has decided to send out a request of his own for a Gokage Summit," Gaara said clearly. "Already most of the five villages have agreed to meet, save for ourselves and Iwa, as it stands."

"You have to go," she said automatically. "We've been trying forever!"

The Elders continued to stare at her disapprovingly, and it was only then that she remembered she was still wearing her sleepshirt and sweatpants, and that was also why it was so hot. Well, it didn't really matter.

"Exactly," Kankuro agreed.

From the sour looks on every Head's face, they were losing. Badly. Maybe she'd actually missed enough of this meeting to skip right to the end. She made her way over to Gaara's left, where there was an empty seat. Whether Gaara had orchestrated that on purpose or not, she didn't know, but it was convenient and open and she eased herself down, sending a questioning look Gaara's way.

How long had he been here? They'd gone to sleep at, what, one, two? If it was almost seven now, then at most he got maybe four or five hours of sleep. She wasn't worried about it- like her, Gaara could easily stay up for a week or so before he started to get any kind of tired- but why had it been so urgent if it would take at least a week to prepare?

"Lord Kazekage, we have no stance to stop you," Joseki warned. "But please consider-"

"In any case, the Raikage specified his reasons for the Summit," Gaara said calmly, leaning forward just so. "His younger brother, Killer B, was kidnapped, presumably by Akatsuki. He no longer trusts the other elemental nations. Even if I didn't ask for a Summit previously, at this point, if I don't go, we look guilty."

Fumiko frowned. "The Raikage's brother got taken, too?"

Kankuro spared her a quick glance, and she shut up. Asking more questions at this point could only recycle the argument, so she kept quiet for the rest of the ongoing discussion, watching Gaara speak.

Which jinchuriki was that?

The Eight-tails from Kumo, her brain helpfully supplied. Killer B, high-offensive A-ranked shinobi that when paired with the Raikage A morphed into an S-rank flee-on-sight threat, known for the Double Lariat Lightning Release and his unparalleled control over his biju partner.

She needed to stop reading those bingo books.

...

~ Gaara was with Uzumaki Naruto. She was supposed to either rendezvous with them and the rest of the gang in an hour or so at Ichiraku's, or just wait until Gaara showed up at the hospital to check on her, whichever came first. ~

...

Fumiko's stomach was cramping by the time the meeting let out, and although she couldn't find a clock anywhere down the hallway, her internal time said that it was somewhere around eight or nine in the morning, and everyone in that office room was long overdue for breakfast.

She and Gaara separated at the stairs, with him continuing on to the other room to start off on missed work and to write a reply to the Raikage's demand, and herself heading on downstairs with a quick kiss and a Love you to make breakfast for the both of them.

As she turned on the flames in the stove and dropped a few eggs into the still-cold water to eventually boil, she couldn't help but chew her bottom lip, aggravating the still painful canker sore there.

The Land of Iron.

The Akatsuki.

A Gokage Summit, for the first time in a while.

It was probably too late to do anything at this point- Gaara had tried to get this together since his kidnapping, and at this point, if the Raikage's younger brother- a jinchuuriki- had been taken as well, then chances were that there wouldn't be too many jinchuuriki left to protect.

Everything was heading off. There was just this vibration feeling in her gut that something was going to happen in the Land of Iron.

The others were behind her, Kankuro exhausted from both the early waking hour and his hours spent arguing with the Council, Mai demanding to know everything- Fumiko wasn't sure when exactly her sister had arrived, but at some point she just started demanding to know everything- and Temari, already staring pensively into a mug of coffee she'd made before the meeting ended.

Their voices were comforting, a familiar background noise, the playlist to her life. Mai would go, she realized with a sudden clarity. Mai would go because Fumiko was going. Fumiko was going because Gaara was going, and also because of that, the other two Sand Siblings would go as well.

Mai would probably drag along her team. Two teams and one extra, probably without an escort for neutral peace reasons- seven. Wasn't that an unlucky number, or something?

Fumiko didn't believe in superstition, nor did she really believe in Fate. She did believe in pathways- landmarkers of things you were supposed to do or could do, but were free to venture off of, though you would eventually cross it once more. A lot like the lazy drifting of the clouds, actually. In the same way she had met Gaara, Uzumaki Naruto had formed his Nindo.

Things just happened, and you just had to hope that things wouldn't go wrong.

She pondered this, watching the bubbles pop against the water's edges, hand going automatically to the basket next to the fridge for a peach- these baskets were at this point scattered all around the kitchen for her. She always hoped- knew, in her way- that things wouldn't go wrong.

Things like Gaara dying at the Summit if Akatsuki attacked, or anyone dying at all, or the room erupting into declarations of war, Fumiko had to hope that no one got lost on the way there and that nobody's villages were attacked in the Kages' absence. Things like nobody coming to a conclusion and leaving just as solemnly alone in their effects as before.

Juice flooded her tongue. She was going to be there for Gaara.

In any situation, any what-if.

Fumiko knew she was really just a liability, and that Gaara didn't need moral support, and that technically as Second she was supposed to fill in for him in his absence. But she wanted to be there, he could definitely use it, and Baki could take over in both their steads.

Gaara didn't think like she did. He understood her blur of a mind, but he thought, in some ways, differently.

She wondered what would happen when she asked him if she could go.

...

~ Probably the latter. ~

...

"Gaara's having a Summit, so I know that means Fumiko's going too," Mai muttered.

"Mew."

"That means I have to go."

"Mew."

"It doesn't matter if I'm just getting released from my medical in a few hours, my everything is practically healed. I can still fight, and it's not like I really need my arm or foot for jutsu anyway, as long as the fingers move. And those've been healed for a while."

Cat blinked at her from his spot curled up inside her sling. "... Mew."

Mai rolled her eyes at the kitten, who merely pawed at a loose flap of bandage when she didn't reply right away.

She was walking- not running, not shunshinning, not roof-hopping, walking- down the street, stiffening her arm to keep Cat from getting overly jostled by the pushy midday crowds. Although, people tended to, if not get out of her way entirely, skirt about her. Maybe it was because she walked with swagger, and maybe it was because of the battle marks on her skin, but they did.

It wasn't that far from the Tower to the hospital. It wasn't like she was going to be late. Just a minimal physical to make sure everything was well and dandy, and then they'd take the sling and probably give her a few more medications and clear her to go right on ahead and fight her way back into the hospital like a respectable shinobi.

"What am I gonna do with you, though? Leave step by step instructions so Mom knows how to clean you and how much medicine to put in your food? You're not even litter trained yet. Dad'll drown you."

"Mew-mew."

"But it's not like I can take you to-"

Mai sensed the flash of lazy, cool chakra a split second before it spoke. In a fight, that split second would have let her slide around and either decapitate, maim, or seriously injure whoever was behind her with ease, depending on their height and body structure. As it was, this was't a fight, and it was just Kankuro, so Mai simply took another step forward.

"Who're you talking to?" He sidled up along her right side, the side without the sling. He didn't seem to like ever standing on that side of her. "Yourself?"

"None of your business," she muttered.

Cat, the stupid traitorous bastard he was, immediately poked his head above the sling despite the sandy air and mewled at the new arrival, one paw coming up to knead the taut edge of the fabric. His back claws dug into her skin through the bandages.

"What the-"

"I hate you," she told Cat.

"You have a cat? Since when do you have a cat?" Kankuro laughed, sounding pleasantly startled. "I didn't know you even liked cats."

Cat hissed at him once before ducking back into her sling to curl up on her arm. She wondered what the animal was going to think when they left the hospital later AWOL one comfy sling. Served him right.

Of course, he'd probably take refuge on her shoulder instead.

"I don't," she said. "What are you doing out here?"

Kankuro raised his eyebrow slightly one hand absently drawing up to tug on his scroll case's strap. "To market. I need more tabuki paint. I told you this morning. But seriously, what's with the cat? Does it have a name?"

"Right, right, your makeup." When he didn't take the bait, only waiting expectantly, she huffed. "I found him, okay? He's a runt. Cat's a stray. He kind of adopted me, I think."

"You named your runt cat Cat?"

"Shut up, Baka-Kankuro. It wasn't intentional."

"Crap, I passed the stall. See you later, Mai," he said suddenly, backtracking distractedly. Mai blinked at the absolute lack of any kind of argument or teasing aside from that one comment, pausing in her stride. A civilian man veered to avoid careening into her back. Cat mewled.

"Uh... See you?" she said, but he was already gone. One-two-three.

"Mew."

"What?" she snapped when the cat tugged on one wild lock of hair with it's claws, resuming her stride. "What do you want, traitor? And I'm getting you declawed, first chance I get."

Cat would have to stay here under, if not her mother's- because she hadn't really been kidding in her prediction that her father would get fed up with Cat's occasional pisses- then someone's care. Maybe... who in her friend group wasn't going on the little expedition? It would have to be her mother. Maybe she could get Fumiko help her to make a repellant tag/collar thing that was Fukuda-retardant.

Yeah, that would work.

...

~ Fumiko smiled fondly as she headed towards the open field that held all her dandelion weeds. ~

...

According to the Elders and agreed upon by Gaara, he would leave in two weeks, as the Summit was in four and it would take a while to travel on foot and cross Land of Waves' ocean territory by boat and actually locate the Summit headquarters in an unfamiliar Land without a guide.

She and Gaara had enough clothes to pack for the two week long trip and still not even notice the dent in their daily routines, so Fumiko figured it was better to pack now rather than forget later.

For two weeks, she brought a week's worth of clothes that she could wear twice, a Sealing scroll with fifteen markings on it- each with a day's worth of dried foods she'd prepared earlier similar to shinobi rations- wrapped soaps, money for teahouses, a Sealed tarp and sleeping bag, waterproof matches she found in a kitchen junk drawer, an extra first aid kit and a liter bottle of sugar just for old times' and tastebuds' and probably future boredom's sake.

An empty journal and dry inks and brushes for sealwork that could double as a sketchbook with the colored pencils she threw in. Extra toiletries from the drawer in her and Gaara's bathroom with five million toothbrushes, hairbrushes and mini-toothpastes just in case they ran out of or lost anything. That one scroll Gaara had in the bottom right drawer of his dresser (his shinobi drawer, secret compartment and everything) with the cooking supplies because Gaara would melt the frying pan before he managed to successfully scramble eggs.

Mai would have other things, Mai and her newly-trained Genin team- things like chakra pills and extra rations and canteens and water purification pills and trapping supplies.

Eventually everything fit down into one bag, Gaara's old one that he'd been regulated as a Genin and never used. The clothes were mismatched maternity and various kinds of sweats, they could be wrinkly anyway, so it didn't matter how tight it was cramped, and seals really did make everything better...

Perfectly relaxed yet unabsorbed in thought, Fumiko sensed him long before she heard him.

He sounded very tired.

"Okay."

Fumiko straightened, still trying to force down the flap and cinch it, looking backwards at the door from her spot next to the bed. Gaara was just watching her silently now, eyes unblinking, mouth a thin, though not really upset, line. She noticed offhand that his kanji was fading.

"I have to-" she started, ready to burst into a come with you Gaara I know it's not safe and that I'm pregnant but I need to come with you, please. But he merely closed his eyes, once, teal flashing into black and back into blue.

"I know." Was all he said.

"Gaara, I-" Fumiko trailed off, blinking once. "... wait, huh?"

"I'm not going to argue with you." He smiled then, small, still very tired, but more resigned than anything else. "I know you have to. It's just who you are. It's pointless to fight about it."

"There might be bad guys," Fumiko very nearly stuttered, for once on unsolid ground.

Gaara's kanji raised slightly with his brow. Amusement flickered in his expression and he took a step inside, letting the door shut behind him. It was warm in their room, warm and bright and primary, sunlight slanting through the windows and memories singing through their picture frames. Their home. "No worse than me."

"They won't let me in the Summit office, or wherever you'll be," she reminded him, smile twitching across her lips. "I'm not a guard and it'd be politically incorrect."

"I'm hoping they will." Gaara reached the bed, and Fumiko turned to meet him, bag forgotten. The lid probably burst back open, but that was okay. That was fine. "I'm sure it would go much smoother if they did. But that's why you're bringing Mai with you, isn't it?"

Her smile curled into a grin, and she looked straight up where he looked down, taking both his hands and lacing their fingers. Gaara responded, tight grip betraying his worry. "Bringing her? She would've come anyway."

"Perhaps." His forehead lined, eyes not narrowing so much as drooping, not quite pleading. "Fumiko..." he murmured, but before he could finish whatever he was about to say Fumiko rocked upwards gently on the balls of her foot, pushing down on their linked hands for support, and kissed him.

"I know." She pulled away, studying the quiet fear in his features, the love, the worry. Fumiko couldn't help but wonder what had changed his mind, shifted the argument staining their lives into something like content acceptance, unexpectedly, in this moment. Was it because she'd died, but come back to him? "And thank you, Gaara."

...

~ It was near the playground of Konoha's civilian school's playground. The sets were usually abandoned, though. ~

...

It felt like no time had passed and then suddenly they were leaving, boat tickets tucked away, weapons at the ready.

Well, except for Kankuro, but he'd been sleeping when the party of six met up in the kitchen for an early breakfast and then headed to the aviary to grab their tickets. The last time Fumiko had seen him, he'd been bleary eyed and just woken up, fumbling with his puppets and waving them off with a "I'll meet you there, jeez!"

They'd been met at the gate with a parade of Sunagakure citizens, shonobi and no, despite the morning hour. The sun was up, but it was only just, probably eight or eight thirty. Come high noon, they would have to set up camp and prepare to travel at night. Not that they couldn't travel at high noon, but they also didn't have to, and it would waste water and possibly cause problems.

Fumiko hefted the camo-tan bag with her supplies in it. Mai did the same beside her, fingers curling into the strap. Her other hand rested absently on her sword hilt. Beside her was Eishi and Shiragiku, both equipped with packs of their own, minus their sensei.

"- going to be cold in the Land of Iron, so don't forget to keep yourselves warm," her mother was saying. "And Gaara, careful with your sand armor. You don't want to get overheated traveling through the desert. Wait, Mai, Fumiko, can you swim?"

"We'll be fine, mom," Mai said, lifting her hand from her blade hilt to wave it in the air. Her fingers were finally freed of the bandage that held them together, and they waved haphazardly. "Take care of Cat, okay?"

"Medication in his food. Flea bath once a week. Keep the Repellation collar on." Their mother nodded. "Of course. Take care, you kids."

Temari, despite the sour look that twisted her lips, didn't correct their mother or say that Gaara was the Kazekage so please show him that respect. Gaara was smiling, even if it was slight and hidden. Temari never purposely broke her little brother's smiles.

"You take care as well, Mrs. Mitsuwa," he said quietly.

Baki wasn't here to see them off, mostly because he was already hard at work as Gaara's replacement in the office. Fumiko had bade him goodbye on the way out, but the older ninja had been thoroughly engrossed in work.

"Of course."

"Excuse me, official guard coming through. Excuse me. Excuse me. Hey, watch it!"

A black hood bobbled through the crowd, people parting for the taller shinobi as he pushed through it. His outfit was barely different than usual except for in the details- the color scheme was all the same, his haori was thinner and tied off with a sash, but he still wore his hood, face washed with purple.

"Hi, Kankuro!" Fumiko called.

"Kankuro, you're late," Temari snapped as he made his way over, puppet scrolls on his back. His face looked freshly painted; he probably hadn't even woken up until after they left the aviary.

Mai, as well, laughed, hands on her hips. One arm was still wrapped from her shoulder to just a few inches short of her wrist, but she was missing the cast, arm finally- after Fumiko's many attentions as well as chakra therapy at the hospital, and time- mostly healed. At most, it was wrapped only to alleviate leftover discomfort. There was also wrapping on her foot where her boot had been, and probably around her ribs and the new scars there. "We're gonna be late to the first Kage summit in forever and it's going to be all your fault."

"Assembling my puppets took longer than I thought," he shot back, tone annoyed. He hefted the strap of his seal case, taking his spot beside Gaara, who nodded at him. Mai rolled her eyes, as did his sister.

"Goodbye, Lord Kazekage! Please, take care!" Matsuri said, leading the near army of people that had come to see them off.

Gaara looked different than usual, without either his fight clothes nor his Kazekage robes- these were more like politics-clothes, which was basically his fight clothes with a thick white scarf meant to keep out sand, dropping a rectangle of white that resembled his robes down his front and back all the way to his waist. As well, there were two pouches strapped to his legs, like he would actually need the kunai they contained in a had repainted his kanji just last night, so it was red and bright.

He wore his new- well, relatively new- larger gourd on his back, with his Kazekage's hat tied to it's middle. It had taken a bit of practice for him to get his sand- a newer, larger amount to fit it's new case- back up to the same cutting speed, strength, and reaction to how it had been.

Well... not quite. The sand, although it still automatically protected him from glaringly obvious threats, wasn't able to react as quick as it used to, at least, not without Gaara's direct control. Better and worse.

"Lord Kankuro, Lady Temari, please take care. We're counting on you." an advisor said, more quietly and respectfully than most in his job position had said before him. Fumiko liked this one- although he and Gaara rarely agreed, the man at least had a respect for her best friend that she appreciated.

"We know," Temari said smugly and happily, waving one of her multiple small fighting fans like a normal person would with a handheld fan. Her outfit was different as well, with the ever-present fishnet-top underneath a light purple haori tied with a darker purple cloth that looked almost like a vest, like Gaara's flack jacket, only a shirt. She had three kunai pouches- one on each hip and one on her leg- a seal fixed to her belt for her giant folding fan, and similar to Gaara, she wore a thick scarf, only it was a darker, tannish shade than his, and fell farther down her body.

Fumiko herself didn't have a very stable outfit nowadays, she tended to just wear whatever maternity shirt and half-sweatpants touched her fingers first in her closet. Now, though, she had many made-to-size to bring that included mainly a light tan-orange shirt the color of sand itself, made with thin fabric and with half-sleeves that tapered oddly at her elbows, and dark brown pants with elastic waistbands. The shirt was a v-neck, so she as well wore one of the scarves, peach-colored and with the tail end draped over her back only rather than her front.

Of course, she had her medical pack slung over her shoulder cross-body style, with a few random seals and weapons for good measure, as well as her archer's sheath and Bakuryou staff. She'd had to make her sheath multiple interchangeable straps, since the one that had fit before was too tight now, and after the twins were born, the one she had now would be too loose.

Eishi, Shiragiku, and Mai didn't look different at all, save for Mai's few leftover fluttering bandages on her one foot and her arm, and probably more on her ribs. Mai's earring flashed in the sun alongside Eishi's salmon hair. Shiragiku just smiled, tugging on his pouch strap.

"But Gaara doesn't really need bodyguards," Kankuro pointed out in an annoyed way, not quite whiny or grumbling in front of all these people. His face paint, too, had changed, Fumiko realized- a T on his face with a solid line across his mouth and a dash down his chin, and another straight, thick line across his eyes like a superhero's mask. It made his face seem larger somehow, older. "Why are we going?"

"Oh, hush," her mother scolded, then smiled. "Be safe. Gaara, good luck at the Summit."

"Yes. Come on," Gaara said, turning, ignoring his brother's unspoken complaints. "It's time to go."

Fumiko turned with him, hair and scarf breezing into a flutter in the sandy Suna air. She took a deep breath as she, Team Otokaze, and the Sand Siblings fell into step. Ooh, she missed the grainy, hot, stuffy wind already... They were going all the way to the land of Iron, a place she had never been to but had gotten clients from, so she was curious to what it was like. Hot? Cold? Rocky or grassy or full of trees?

"Among all the five Kage, Gaara's gonna be the youngest one," Temari said out loud, although whether she was talking to herself, Kankuro, or one of them, it was impossible to tell. "It's our duty to make sure that the other Kage don't take him lightly.

"A five Kage Summit," Kankuro mused in an almost breathless, wondering tone. "You know, I can't help but wonder... what all the other Kage are like."

"I bet they're nice too," Fumiko said brightly.

Mai snorted. "I bet they're all a bunch of prudish old bastards. Hey, Shiragiku, why didn't Otokaze-sensei hit up with us this time, again? I was listening but didn't really pay attention."

"This isn't a mission, Mai-chan," he replied softly as they neared the canyon opening of the village gates. "Otokaze-sensei is allowing us to go on our own as a technicality. He has other things to attend to."

"Huh."

...

~ As she walked, she passed by various citizens of Konoha, most of them civilians. They waved to her, and she waved back, calling out greetings. ~

...

As they traveled, the sun went up and down, growing less and less harsh each time. For a short while, one or two days, the sand faded completely into thick trees, and then faded to a sparse line in favor of a more swampy climate as they neared the Land of Rivers.

The plan was to go from Rivers, the closest water-outlet based Country to Sunagakure, and skirt the coastline until they hit Waves, where they would eventually make their way onto a boat equipped to skirt Kiri and take them straight to the Land of Iron's border.

Until then, Fumiko was appreciating the journey and the scenery. She had never been to the Land or Rivers or the Land of Waves, and aside from in pictures she had never even seen a coastline- it would be her first time at the ocean. And Gaara was helping her out with things, often carrying her with his sand or walking behind the group with her and assisting her in pulling her prosthetic out of the occasional mucky patch of wet mud.

When they weren't in shunshin- which wasn't actually that often, they were ahead of schedule and had plenty of time even if they weren't- the seven of them played road games like I spy, Twenty Questions, and Team Storybuilding.

"And then the shinobi rabbit stood up to the wolf and said..." Kankuro only gave limited answers, although he seemed curious in everyone else's lines.

"I dunno... Piss off?" Mai laughed. "Yeah. It said, 'Piss off, and never return!'"

"And then the wolf said 'you're far too small to frighten me.'" Eishi quipped without missing a beat. Shiragiku had created the shinobi bunny on his own, Gaara the wolf, and Fumiko herself the magical land of animal-bended shinobi creatures with species-based villages complete with to size scale worldbuilding and nuke-nins.

Temari sighed irritably as all eyes fell on her. "This is stupid."

"Come on, Temari," Fumiko exclaimed.

"Yeah, c'mon," Kankuro said with a grin. "We've got at least an hour invested in this, don't give up now."

The blond groaned. "Fine. The shinobi rabbit used a Futon jutsu and blew the big, bad wolf away. Happily ever after."

"..."

"..."

"... Now what should we play?"

...

~ Soon, Fumiko knew, it would be like that in Suna, too. The Heads would convene the conferences when hey returned to Suna in a month't time. Gaara would become Kazekage, and then everyone would wave at him, too. ~

...

Her first time seeing the coastline; her first time seeing the ocean.

Fumiko had entirely forgotten that it would also be her first time on a boat. Her and Gaara and everyone else except maybe Mai, Fumiko wasn't sure and didn't think she was allowed to ask.

She spent a lot of the four day boat ride running around the deck to look at everything, gaping at the animals that flowed underneath the water- dolphins, sleek grey and white animals that chattered and jumped and played alongside the boat; and brightly colored schools of fish that fractured through the water like fragments of light from her prism.

Spray kicked up against the smooth sheet metal, sleeting her face and hair and outstretched hands and arms with salt water that felt cool and airy and wet. She and Gaara spent a lot of time just chatting and hanging out at the 'prow' (sailor speak for the front pointy part of the boat that wasn't underwater) leaned up against the railings like it was a Sunagakure balcony, waking early and going to bed late, Mai joining them for most sunsets and sunrises.

She also talked a lot to the sailors who weren't doing super important things like steering the boat or navigating or fixing parts of the boat's mechanics. A few let her tag after them; the captain along with one nice sailor named Akahito, who showed her how to draw up the anchor and scrub the salt off not-as-important-as-others mechanics and sing sailor songs like Fiddler's Green and The Sailor's Alphabet. The captain merely laughed at her curiosity and taught her how to tack and jibe and maneuver into the wind.

None of them seemed to mind that she was pregnant, giving her little things here and there to do when she asked to help, and a lot of times she cooked things or mixed up drinks to take out to everyone. Gaara was usually on her heels, and it was just like the old days, when the Sand Siblings were still an official team and Gaara being Kazekage was merely a dream.

Everyone kept a close eye on her whenever she went near the edge- Fumiko could feel it, she just didn't care- even the sailors, which was curious.

They slept in 'cabins' which weren't actually cabins but tiny rooms with beds and drawers that sometimes slid with the waves and tiny portholes similar to windows in Suna. They bunked in twos, Gaara and Fumiko in one, Kankuro and Temari in another, and all of Team Mai stayed in one, with Shiragiku taking up a canvas hammock.

The beds were too small to share; at least with her rolling- if she rolled at the same time as a wave slid the bed, it didn't matter if Gaara was already awake or not, she would fly off the side- she already had enough times.

It didn't matter. Unused to too much sleep, both of them spent more than half their combined nighttimes lying on the deck, watching the stars, which seemed clearer out there in the dark, in the middle of the ocean, with it's crisp saltwater smell and cool air and gentle rocking and the heesh, whoosh sound of the lapping waves.

It was on the last night, despite all of the others, that she deemed had been and would be the best day of the rest of the day itself had been good, rising early to watch the sunrise, talking and cooking and helping and walking and just resting the hours away, enjoying their last day at sea. She, Gaara, Mai and Temari had stayed up together to stargaze and talk.

But that still wasn't the best part.

It might even have happened the next day, Fumiko didn't really know if it was after midnight or not.

She woke up from an easy, calming dream, prairie grass tinged with rainbow and starry skies and the intruding sound of waves, probably from the outside world- woke very suddenly, blinking, with no clue why.

No clue why, that was, until the reason happened again.

At first she had absolutely no idea what the little jolt was, still foggy from interrupted sleep and confused, half-soothed back into dreams by the gentle rocking and hissing of the boat and the sea.

And then words crammed up her head as her medic brain kicked in and she sat up all at once, shoving the blankets away.

...

~ Or maybe not. Fumiko couldn't remember anyone ever really waving at Rasa. ~

...

Gaara woke from a dreamless sleep at the creaking of the old wooden floor of their cabin, eyes sliding open blearily at the touch-and-ebb of the boat, which was relaxing and loose. He'd worried about one or all of them getting seasick, but nobody seemed to be anything less than happy on the boat.

Warm blue-brown washed against his senses and he woke up all the way, head lifting as his arms stirred to push him up and see what was wrong.

But he stopped when small hands took up one of his before he'd even managed to turn his head to the other side to look at her, and his palm pressed against cloth for a moment, and he really didn't know what was going on until his head finally switched sides.

Fumiko blinked, milky chocolate eyes surprisingly stark in the starlight shining through the window, standing next to the bed and holding Gaara's hand to her stomach. He opened his mouth to speak, knowing it would probably slur and crack with sleep at least for the first few words, but then paused, brows furrowing.

Something twitched against his fingers.

"Fumiko... what-"

She shushed him, and pressed her fingertips against his hand more firmly.

And then it clicked, and Gaara blinked. The flush that stained his skin only lasted seconds, heat flaring and then dying against- something.

Fumiko smiled, straight white teeth a shock in the darkness.

...

~ But, then again, Gaara wasn't Rasa. ~

...

Gaara had been expecting the cold. Of course he had. He'd even been expecting the iced-over rocks from prior rainfall frozen to the stones. But it was summer, no matter what, and yet now...

... it was snowing.

At first he felt only irritation, recognizing the wide expanse of white subconsciously from pictures and novel descriptions. This was going to murder their travel time. It was going to be cold, and wet, and hard to find a proper shelter, and his sand wouldn't work nearly as well if at all during a fight if it was storming frozen powder.

Of course, that was why he wanted Fumiko near. Yes, to keep her safe, but one of the very many intriguing things about her, and one of the things he loved the most, was that she pointed out the stupidly obvious from the tangle of human emotions.

"Ahh!" she screamed happily, hands outstretched, ignoring the way her skin twitched or the wind bit or the cold settled over her half-sleeved arms, catching snowflakes. "It's snowing! It's snowing! Gaara, look, snow!"

Yes, it was snowing.

But... it was snowing.

The deck hand Fumiko had befriended- Akahito, with a solid build and scars and a quick wit that Gaara wondered if Fumiko understood- laughed and smiled, dropping a hand on Fumiko's head. "Never seen snow before, eh?"

"Never in my life!" She reached up and grabbed his wrist with both hands, eyes wide but grinning. "Gaara, it's just like my dream! Guys- Mai, look, it's snowing, isn't that so cool?"

"I heard you the first million times," the younger Mitsuwa said, rubbing at her arms. "Damn, it's cold. It was so warm yesterday. How can you just sail into a snow cloud like that?"

"Easy, lass," Akahito said jovially. Obviously he'd expected the snow- he wore layered woolen long sleeve shirts and pants, with a scarf and a hat, just like everyone else on board save for the party from Sunagakure, four of which wore only scarves and the rest thin clothes. Only Eishi was even wearing a jacket at all, and though it was thick and probably warmer than any of their other clothes, he shivered and yanked at the cropped hem, trying to pull in down. "You just sail into it."

Mai scowled a little, rubbing at her uncovered and bandaged arms. "Whatever."

"It's time to go," Temari said, cracking open her fan a little to shake the snow out of the folds. Already the boat's deck was coated in white, along with all their shoulders. Gaara had long since crept a hard layer of sand across his skin to separate himself from the cold, but it was still freezing.

"Okay!" Fumiko agreed, although Gaara was sure she would try to play with the weather as soon as they touched land. She pulled the sailor's hand away from her hair. "Bye, Akahito! Tell Captain Yakumo I said bye, too!"

The man grinned, although it seemed more directed at Gaara himself then her, like they shared some kind of inside joke. "Of course. Have fun in the snow, Fumiko-chan."

...

~ Fumiko tripped on a root that came out of nowhere, poking out of the ground in the middle of the cobblestone street, arms flailing as she fell, but managed to catch herself when she went sprawling to the ground with an 'oof!' of surprise. ~

...

Mai gnawed on a bit of frozen ration bar as they trudged through the snow, condensed chocolate nearly crunching between her teeth.

Well, she was trudging, and so was everyone else save for her sister.

Actually, thinking on it, it would've probably been worse all together if Fumiko wasn't Fumiko, dragging through the weather and near snowstorms with inadequate clothing. They barely staved off hypothermia with circulated chakra, which didn't help much in the way of being cold, and also exhausted them.

But now there was something to watch- her sister ploughing happily through the snow, leaving little trenches with her prosthetic. Her sister singing songs Mai had heard the other crewmen singing as they worked around the boat. Her sister squeezing snow through her numbed fingers, talking animatedly about the texture and the colors and the taste.

She smiled with her blue lips even now, shivering alongside the rest of them in between a few outcroppings of rock Kankuro and Gaara had scouted out that kept most of the snow away, huddled around two separate fires fueled by Shiragiku and lit by Mai herself.

The ground, of course, was scattered with little shoe-sized snowmen with fingernail scratched faces and senbon limbs that Mai would have to remind herself to take back before they left later.

"S-so how much longer until we r-reach the S-s-summit, Gaara?" she asked, leaned up against him for warmth. "Will it s-still be s-snow-wing?"

"Tomorrow. But I don't know if it will still be snowing." His gaze was fond but worried. Mai was worried, too- Fumiko couldn't really trap chakra underneath her skin. All she could do in the way of staving off frostbite was forcing more chakra than usual out at a constant rate, which left her sleepy and tired. Kankuro had lent her one of his tunics, which she kept wrapped around herself- body, backpack, staff and all- at all times.

He'd offered Mai one, but she refused.

They'd only been traveling for a day, less than that if one counted the moments they stopped for shelter and food- which she totally did, because they froze their asses off either way- but it wasn't far to the Summit meeting place, according to Gaara and his map's coordinates. They would've been there today if it wasn't for the stupid snow.

A few flakes escaped through the cracks and blew against her skin, which prickled. Mai shivered, hugging herself.

"O-o-oh." Fumiko beamed. "I hope it is-s! If we g-get there and they have warmer c-clothes then it'll be eas-sier to be outside, right?"

"I can't believe you want to be outside in this weather!" Out of the seven of them, Kankuro seemed to be adjusting the least. Team Otokaze was mostly okay, she reflected, with chakra and Shiragiku's long sleeves and Eishi's jacket. Hell, even her hair was helping her stay warm a little, if only against her neck. Fumiko was happy in any case, Gaara was cheating with sand armor and Temari, like her, was gritting her teeth and bearing it. But Kankuro was Suna-bred through and through.

Fumiko only picked up another handful of snow, even as she scooted closer to the flickering flames. Gaara moved with her, gourd cast to the side, heavy and fairly useless in the weather. "I can't wait to paint this. Pictures didn't show me anything."

...

~ Two or three strangers drifted over to help her up, dust her off, and ask if she was okay, and then follow up with questions about her prosthetic in the first place. She thanked them, assured them she was fine, and when they finally went on their way, went about hers. ~

...

The neutral area they were staying at- not the actual Tower place the meeting would be at; it was more like a hotel almost, because when they finally crested over the last stretches of snow they were a full day early- looked like a crab's pincer, two huge, carved but natural stands of ruck jutting and curving out of the snow. It was big, and cold-looking, and kind of scary.

As they approached the doors- at this point everyone hoping for a somewhat warmer climate change, despite her joy Fumiko really did miss miss miss her desert- they swung open and then closed again as a short man and two guards leaked out to greet them.

How they'd known they were here was beyond her, but she was just glad she didn't have to knock. She couldn't really feel her fingers anymore.

"We've been awaiting your arrival, Kazekage-sama," the Land of Iron representative said, his expression stern, posture straight. "Welcome. I am Mifune, a general in this Land of Iron."

He was an older-looking man, wrinkly and confident- a samurai- with grey hair that draped down past his shoulders, with a long goatee and thin, drooping mustache. His clothes were made with pale, faded-looking colors; light purples and whited yellows.

Fumiko, freezing but still absolutely enchanted by the whiteness, held her palm out to catch another flake. It melted instantly and her hand, out of the warm pockets of the oversized black shirt Kankuro had lent her, numbed. She shivered, but smiled, feeling and hearing her teeth chatter even as she stuck it back into the pocket and wrapped her cloth-covered arms around herself. "H-Hello," she said. "It's n-nice to m-meet you."

Gaara, seemingly completely unaffected by the cold- and Fumiko was pretty sure he was wearing his sand armor- calmly reached up and with one finger pulled the scarf down from his mouth to unobscure his face. "I'm very pleased to meet you," he said cooly, in a tone that suggested neither aggression nor friendliness. "I am the Kazekage, Gaara."

"Man, it's cold," Kankuro hissed, and he was shaking even worse than Fumiko was, arms wrapped around himself and twitching, face twisted like he was in pain. He bounced from one foot to the other to keep warm. "The climate here is totally different than the land of Wind. Brr!"

"We will serve you some hot tea to warm you up," Mifune suggested in a voice just as colorlessly respectful as Gaara's. He held up an arm in the direction of the giant doors, glistening with semi-melted, caked snow. "Enter."

"Uh," Kankuro managed, looking up from the snow under his feet. He sneezed.

"Thanks," Mai said, still in the grinning-confident way she did everything, but Fumiko was sure that if this wasn't politically high-strung, she'd be cursing the cold and the snow and the entire Land of Iron. She didn't seem to find the coating whiteness quite so magical as Fumiko did. Her thumbs were still tucked into her belts, but every muscle in her body was rigid with the effort not to shiver, even her jaw, so the words came out clipped. "Don't be such a w-wuss, Kankuro, it's just some snow."

"Oh my Kami, it's freezing," Eishi gasped, as well dancing about. "Can we please go inside now?"

Temari rolled her eyes. Her posture was more relaxed, not rigid like Mai nor shivering like her brother. She looked colder than Gaara, but still considerably at ease, especially if one took her lack of sleeves into account. "Yes, thank you."

...

~ She'd scraped her knee, but that was okay. ~

...

As soon as they were warm, endless helpings of tea drowned back, hot food devoured, and the heaters humming pleasantly despite the middle-of-nowhere feel the building exuded as a whole, everyone started to get tired despite the midday hour, muscles unclenching and senses relaxing.

Gaara refused the extra room they offered, would not separate from Fumiko in a place like this, full of strange samurai and already arrived foreign nin. Despite the neutral status, historically it was almost never relevant when tensions were high, which they were, and extremely so.

Here, his sand dried, easier to manipulate. He felt safer and more endangered here. So when everyone retired, still choosing to bunk in twos and threes for security reasons, and Fumiko absolutely passed out almost before they reached the bed and looking much less pale and blue than before, Gaara did not sleep.

...

~ A few minutes later, she was at the field, digging an empty jar she'd brought along out of her satchel as she walked. ~

...

As expected, Fumiko wasn't able to enter the Summit room. She couldn't even go into the top few floors closest to the room itself, and so she had to stay on the first floor of the Tower- which wwas actually a pyramind of floors and labyrinthine halls filled with pillars smattered with interesting runes and old language.

She stood with Mai, Shiragiku and Eishi on the first floor of the stone room, wide and open and full of those pillars. It looked almost like a very formal, disguised arena.

Gaara went on without them, along with Temari and Kankuro, who bid farewell for the rest of the day or however long the Summit lasted. Research had yielded that the longest recorded Five Kage Summit had gone on for eight days, so there was no telling.

They weren't alone, though. The floor was full of samurai bedecked in armor and what looked like gas masks, bearing sheathed weapons like bladeless hilts all over their persons.

"I hope this goes well," she murmured.

"I hope so too," Mai said. "But what about your Akatsuki theory?"

"Akatsuki theory?" Eishi piped up, looking curious. Fumiko just shrugged at his questioning blinks, reaching up to tug on the black cloth pouch attached to her necklace underneath her scarf. She hadn't really changed her outfit, considering that the Tower (Pyramid) was so close to the place they were staying.

"She thinks something's gonna happen. Something big and climactic," Mai added.

Shiragiku frowned softly. "If that happened, the Summit would likely dissolve. People could die."

"Let's just hope I'm wrong, then."

...

~ Fumiko wondered if she would meet up with any familiar patients. She hoped yes and hoped no, because obviously it would be super bitter if they were in the hospital again, but it would also be really cool to see them again. ~

...

It was cold in the Kage's meeting room. Very, very cold. He couldn't wear his sand armor, there were definitely going to be sensors among the Kage's guards and he didn't want to appear aggressive. But he definitely wasn't used to cold of any kind.

Gaara hadn't been expecting the snow, but it was also very worth it, when he thought back, to see the absolute shocked look of pure joy on Fumiko's face at the whiteness spread on the rocks and the ground and eventually, swirling through the air, catching it in her hands and on her tongue, and spinning as she walked like she would in the rain.

The creak of the Land of Iron's representative's seat brought him back to the present- to the large room with only two key features: the large, crescent moon shaped meeting table, wide and smooth, made with sanded stone, flanked by equally regal seats; and the circular perch of Mifune, seperate from the Kages' half-circle, nearly completing it- the neutral.

Behind him, like their own, was the large door- the only entrance and exit, soundproofed and nearly indestructible, depicting the Land of Iron's symbol emblazoned black-or-purple. It was large, much larger than the man who sat before it, flanked by bodyguards of his own. The rest of the space was relatively empty, without even widows to gaze out at the snow.

"Place your Kage headpieces before you," Mifune commanded.

Mei, the Mizukage, moved first and easily. Gaara pulled lightly on his, dislodging it from it's place on his gourd, both symbols of his power, and placed it lightly on the desk, pushing it forward. The other Kage eventually did the same, and soon there was a semi-circle of kanji.

The Gokage Summit had begun. Gaara laced his fingers, letting his chin rest lightly on the backs of his hands, knowing full well that despite the intended relaxed, unoffensive demeanor, he could snap up, away, or to the sides easily- the seats seemed designed that way. Not that he needed to. Gaara didn't need to move an inch to fight on a dime.

In any case, Gaara also knew that above him, behind the blacked-out curtains, in the shelf-like panel nearer the ceiling with it's wood paneled tabletop in a similar crescent to theirs, his siblings sat tense, alert, ready. Despite Kankuro's complaints, Gaara knew that both his brother and his sister wouldn't hesitate to defend him.

"You," Mifune began as starkly fluorescent lights cut through the murky half-lit room, shining over each Kage's respective Land's symbol on the tapestries behind their seats, one by one, like clockwork. Tak. Tak. His voice was low, lower even than Gaara's, deepened with age. "The Five Kage, assembled here today in response to Raikage-sama's summons." Tak-tak-tak. "I, Mifune, will preside over these proceedings. And now- let the Five Kage Summit commence!"

"Then allow me to begin," Gaara said, not quietly but not loudly, either; even. He didn't move from his relaxed but still straight posture, eyes skimming the faces of the other Kage. It annoyed him, just a little, that they'd all jumped to the Raikage's call, and not his own. "Listen."

"Heh!" The sharp, sudden noise came from the Tsuchikage, an old man with wrinkles across his face, smaller than any Gaara had met, a child in all but experience. Gaara paused; let his eyes slide to the old man. "My, my, how the Kage have changed," he said in a voice not unlike adults' he'd grown up with- condescending, mocking. "To be named Kage at your young age is quite impressive, Lord Kazekage. Yet despite your father's obviously brilliant guidance, he seems to have not taught you any etiquette."

Gaara didn't have to be a sensor to feel his brother tense above them, but he let the insults slide. If he'd had eyebrows, he might have raised them at the Tsuchikage's hypocritical daggers. He could only imagine what Fumiko would have said.

Gaara worked hard to get where he is today. His father had nothing to do with it. And you interrupted him first, Ohnoki. Go ahead, Gaara, tell them why we needed a Summit.

What he said was, "Yes, probably," in a smooth, unimpressed, almost perfectly respectful voice. "That's why I was chosen as Kazekage."

Ohnoki burst into a brief fit of cackling laughter, leaning back in his chair. The Tsuchikage's drooping mustache quivered as he did. "You cheeky young rascal," he exclaimed, like it was a conspiracy.

"Lord Tsuchikage," Mei said on Gaara's right. She sounded no more impressed than himself, though the hair obscuring her face was just as impossible to read as his own stony expression. "Please don't interrupt anymore. Please, continue, Lord Kazekage," she said, looking over at him.

"I am a former jinchuuriki," he said blandly, like he'd never been interrupted in the first place. "The Akatsuki captured me. They took my biju from me, and have since then attacked and defeated other jinchuuriki of your villages. And that is why I consider the Akatsuki to be an extremely dangerous group. I sought the aid of the Five Kage many times, and was ignored, except for the previous Hokage.

"Jinchuuriki from all your nations have been taken," he continued. "To collaborate at this point... is simply too little, too late."

Gaara kept his tone soft and unaccusing. Temari had been right in her assessment- these leaders in front of him considered him as only a child. Likely that was why his own summons had gone entirely ignored- by underestimating him, they'd unknowingly underestimated the threat.

Ohnoki scoffed, a loud harrumph of a snort. "The five great nations' hidden villages can't afford to alert others that their jinchuuriki were taken. It's an embarrassment!" His voice had grown harder and harder as he spoke, defensive and pointy, disbelieving. "Covert rescue and recovery is the norm. No one seeks aid from other lands when jinchuuriki disappear!"

Now Gaara lifted his head slightly, although only to better look at the Tsuchikage, without actually moving his perch. "Appearances, and status." he said quietly, then allowed his voice to rise just so, inflection tinting his tones. "Such foolish, outdated concepts."

Ohnoki scoffed again as he spoke.

"Setting aside whether those beliefs are outdated or not," Mei spoke up at last, chin lifting. "I will acknowledge that as Mizukage I have refrained from acting on this issue. However, I don't believe that having our Tailed Beasts stolen was cause for immediate alarm. After all, it still takes significant skill,knowledge and time to achieve control over them."

Gaara swallowed his instinctual frustration, tamping back the inevitable anger. Of course she didn't. None of them did. You had to be a jinchuuriki to understand jinchuuriki, of course. Except for Fumiko, who'd always understood, outsiders tended to write them off as a number, barely human.

"A jinchuuriki needs to mature along with their Tailed Beast, to adapt to it," Ohnoki said levelly, arms crossed. "Even then, control remains difficult. It is not a simple task." His eyes all but sidled up to him. "Wouldn't you agree, Lord Kazekage?"

Gaara let that brush over him as well, saying nothing, merely watching. His thoughts trailed to the space just beyond the purple door marked with Iron's kanji, where he'd left Fumiko and Mai. He almost wished they were here, despite the political uproar it would cause. Like Mai would say, the old geezer had a stick up his ass, and really wasn't even being relevant.

"Very few have achieved control of the Tailed Beasts," Danzo- Konoha's new temporary Hokage- cut in, eyes closed, chin tilted towards the tabletop as if deep in thought. "Madara Uchiha and the first Hokage Senju Hashirama, and of course the fourth Mizukage Yagura, as well as Lord Raikage's brother, Killer Bee. However..."

It was the intent more than anything else that warned Gaara ahead of time. The Raikage, he realized, had next to no control over his intent. His chakra, yes, but his killing intent, his anger, that flowed into the room like a broken sore. He didn't let himself react, and allowed his siblings to do so for him pushing aside the curtains as the Raikage's fist came up and then, just as quickly, down.

"Enough!" he bellowed, standing, robes flapping, "Of this nonsense!"

Dust filled the room, the sounds of unsheathing weapons and popping seal scrolls a background tune to the crush of stone and rock and bone as the large man likely shattered the top of the half-circle table in front of him. Gaara had heard tales of the Raikage's strength and wasn't so stupid as to discard them.

When the smoke cleared, vision was connected to the chakra signatures around the room, faces to feelings. Every guard was out, crouched on the table or in the empty space in the horseshoe, facing off against the Raikage's own guard. Kankuro's Sasori puppet was outstretched, flamethrower hand meeting a Kumo bodyguard's sword, and Temari's giant folding fan was undone to the fullest degree from her defensive stance just to Gaara's right, protective but unobstructive.

Gaara could hear, but not see, Mifune's drawn out sigh befor ehe spoke. "This Summit is a place of discourse," he said sternly in a harsh tone. "So please refrain from any more behavior that lacks civility."

"Stand down," Danzo said. He was the only one that had moved out of the remaining four Kage. "Fuu. Torenai."

"You too," Gaara commanded, not gently, but without bite. "Kankuro. Temari."

Both glanced back at him, expressions hard and unmoving.

"Ao," the Mizukage said, arms calmly folded on the table. "Chojuro. It's all right."

"Yes ma'am," her guard with the eyepatch said stiffly. The younger one, with the strangely shaped sword crouching on the table, blinked and looked back before relaxing slightly. The tense air didn't seep away, however. All were wary now.

The Raikage, with much noise, dislodged hims clenched fist from the table, stone and wood spikes sticking up like an over exaggerated crater around the hole he'd created,, and slumped back into his seat with a huff, arms folding across his chest. Much, Gaara noted with a small, displeased twitch of his lips, like a pouting child. "Hmph!"

The Guard all warily jumped back and up to their former positions. As they did so, the main lights dimmed once again. Tik. The intense, harsh white of the Summit lights flickered back on above them, bathing the room in blinding white once again. Each Kage was sharply defined.

"Now lets continue our discussion," Mifune said much more calmly.

"Konoha, the Stone, the Sand, the Mist." The Raikage looked at each of them in turn. "The Akatsuki's membership is composed of rogue shinobi from your villages. That's not all, either." His eyes slanted. "From our investigations, we know that among you and the earlier Kage, there are those who have even used the Akatsuki."

Now Gaara's head shot up, hands falling slightly in his surprise, eyes widening a fraction. "The Kage used them?" he asked, almost an exclamation save for the bit of inflection he managed to hold back. His voice still blurted, surprised.

Used the Akatsuki? As what? Mercenaries, no doubt. But why? His laced fingers tightened, shoulders tensing. It was disturbing. Why allow a criminal group the resources to grow even stronger? No wonder they hadn't been caught, or even widely known before- the Kage were using them.

Had his father?

"That's why I don't trust any of you. I have no interest in discourse." the Raikage sniffed angrily. "But the reason I've summoned you all to this Summit is to ultimately question your loyalties!"

Gaara wanted to sigh at that. What loyalties? Treaty or no treaty, it hadn't been a false concern to worry about the outbreak of war simply for messaging another elemental Nation's village. The Raikage had been one of those concerns, known for his fiery temper just as much as his strength and speed. Gaara wasn't interested in that.

"What do you mean, that they used the Akatsuki?" he asked.

"You're the Kazekage, and yet you don't know anything? Just ask your village elders back home!" He pointed an accusing finger in his direction, golden arm band glinting in the white light. "You of the Sand have previously used the Akatsuki in battle!"

"Currently, all five Great Nations are equally stable," Ohnoki said. Gaara spared him a glance- closed eyes, crossed arms, raised nose. "They're moving from military expansion to disarmament. As strained relations between nations ease and the threat of war diminishes, hidden villages considered military powers by their nations merely become costly hindrances. Yet at the same time, completely emilinating these villages poses its own risks as well."

Here Ohnoki opened his eyes and leaned forward before continuing. "What if war suddenly breaks out? Relying on ninja with no battle experience would be problematic! You'd lose the battle without question!"

"The Kage would realize that one way to avoid that risk is to use mercenary soldiers," Gaara let himself finish aloud. Kami, but the thought disturbed him. Chiyo had always spoke of the backwardness of the Sand, relying on others rather than their own strength. Wasn't this much of the same thing, putting the ate of an entire village in the hands of a mercenary that could easily be bought off? "Namely, soldiers from the Akatsuki."

"It takes effort and money to cultivate a compass ninja from within one's own hidden village," Ohnoki said at last. "The Akatsuki makes war its livelihood, and it's made up of experienced professionals. Furthermore, they can be hired quite cheaply. Best of all..." Ohnoki paused for less than a heartbeat. "Their soldiers have always delivered superior results!"

"Don't be pompous, Tsuchikage!" the Raikage spat, directly to the old man's left.

"Hm!"

"Sunagakure once used the Akatsuki," the Raikage continued, looking now at Gaara himself. "To try to destroy the Hidden Leaf. I'm talking about Orochimaru, even if he may have already left the Akatsuki by then. But as a result, your father, the Fourth Kazekage, and the Third Hokage, Hiruzen, perished." Now even the Raikage closed his eyes with a resigned sigh. "It's also hard to dismiss the possibility that this was all part of an even larger plot. But the most suspicious of all is Kiri! Kiri never engages in diplomacy. And it's rumored that the Akatsuki started there!"

Gaara let his eyes slide to Mei, who made no move under the Raikage's harsh glare. The room went silent, waiting for the open accusation to be answered, stretching longer as the Mizukage's eyes remained stubbornly trained on the stone table. Finally she raised her chin, eyes still downcast, soft and pliable; sad.

"Since it's come to this, I'll be honest," she said clearly. "We suspect... that someone from behind the scenes was secretly manipulating Yagura, the man who was Mizukage before me... There's a possibility that that 'someone' was Akatsuki. And that... is exactly why I didn't want to talk big."

"Each and every one of you," the Raikage growled, but Ohnoki cut him off with a sharp glare.

"You just watch your tone, Raikage," he snapped. "In fact, it's because you of the Cloud went around collecting ninjutsu! Seeking more power in the terror of disarmament! We had no choice but to hire the Akatsuki, in order to try and counter your growing power!"

Mei kept her eyes down, face partially covered by her hair, the entire exchange. That didn't escape Gaara's notice, surprise or no. She could be playing them... but her guilt seemed real. Gaara was willing to believe in that. He let his eyes slide from her tense figure to the two squabbling across the half-circle from him.

The Raikage, A, stood once again, pushing back his chair, hands on the table, expression livid. "What was that?" he demanded, but Ohnoki merely huffed and looked away, nose sticking back up into the air.

This Tsuchikage was not unlike his village elders- stubborn and immoveable to change.

"Before you start arguing each other's merits," Danzo said suddenly from his place sitting quietly on the sidelines. "I would like to state the point I was about to make earlier."

Danzo, unlike the other three, was a peacemaker, cutting in only when the air grew tense. Gaara was automatically wary- he wasn't a peacemaker in the way that Fumiko was a peacemaker or that, say, Mei was attempting to be a peacemaker- the new Hokage cut in at convenient times for himself, diffusing the anger or using i to guise his interjections.

It was speculation; a baseless suspicion. But it was suspicion nonetheless.

"What's that?" the Raikage snapped warily. He was still standing, muscles taut.

"It's probable that the leader of the Akatsuki..." He hesitated for merely a moment, and not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. "Is Uchiha Madara."

Gaara almost, almost flinched, although his eyes narrowed to the slightest degree.

"Are you sure of that?" Mei exclaimed quietly, her voice just as shocked as the expressions on the other Kage's faces.

"But how could that even be possible?" Gaara lifted his head further from his hands, letting his disbelief color his tone enough that it was a viable question. And it was, because Uchiha Madara was dead, and had been for a long, long time. "Hasn't he been dead for several decades?"

"The Kazekage's right!" Ohnoki exclaimed, a tremor barely concealed in his shaky, surprised tenor. "Madara has been dead for a long long time!"

"Well, I don't know all of the details," Danzo said calmly, visible eye half-closed, with absolute comfort, like he wasn't suggesting the rise of a terrifyingly strong figure of legend and lore presumed to be dead centuries prior. "But the information is from quite a reliable source."

"Are you saying he's immortal?" the Raikage growled, voice shaken to the point of rumbling.

"Perhaps."

"So then- he really is some kind of inhuman monster," Ohnoki sad in an intensely hushed tone, a single bead of sweat breaking out against his temple, though his eyes were wide and already betrayed his distress.

The Raikage sat hard with an audible thunk. Mifune cleared his throat.

"I'd like to say this as the leader of a neutral nation," he began. Gaara's eyes twitched to his spot on the circle, training on his words like he could see them. "The leader of the Akatsuki has been able to read the times well. Despite stabilizing, the Great Nations harbor suspicions about each other, and the Akatsuki seized on that weakness to amass it's power."

"Would you just get to the point?" the Raikage hissed impatiently. Mifune didn't react.

"Please just stay calm," he said, eyes switching from Kage to Kage. At one point his gaze clicked with Gaara's before moving on. "We can turn this misfortune into a blessing. It's very rare for all five Kage to convene in one location." Finally he raised his eyes, looking clearly at everyone present. "What do you all say to this: Until the Akatsuki are disposed of, why not establish the world's first Allied Shinobi Forces of the five hidden villages?"

Immediately, the Raikage scowled deeply as if outraged. "An Allied ninja force?" he demanded.

"That's a splendid idea," Danzo agreed, eye closed once more. Gaara narrowed his eyes slightly, still discomforted. "We're practically in a state of emergency. Cooperation will be crucial now."

"Moving forward with this plan," Mifune continued. "A standardized chain of command would also be ideal. Further chaos must be avoided."

"Alright." Ohnoki's scowl was dangerous, a fuse. Every Kage, Gaara noted, looked similarly uncomfortable. "And whom do you propose handing the reign of these Allied Forces to, then?"

"If the choice were left to you, you'd all just argue," Mifune said reasonably. Gaara didn't disagree. While he had no burning need to be in charge of such a thing, he only needed what he'd seen of a half hour long meeting to agree with the man. Left to their own devices, the Kage would destroy each other. "Therefore, since you have deemed me to be a neutral party worthy of presiding over you, I will like to make this suggestion." He paused. "I will decide who among you five Kage is the most suitable to lead.

"The Leaf has the last jinchuuriki," Mifune began when nobody protested. "The one containing the Kyuubi. I feel that how he is guided will be the key. I say, why not allow the Hokage to lead the Allied Shonibo Army?"

A small sound of surprised slipped past his lips, along with everyone elses', eyes widening slightly.

Naruto doesn't need to be guided any more. The words almost rolled right off Gaara's tongue, but he bit that back. It wasn't necessary. There were other reasons, good reasons, that the Hokage would make a good candidate, aside from two- one, that Danzo had never been anywhere but the shadows, so Gaara knew virtually nothing about him, and two, that he was so early into the Hokage position.

"What?" The Raikage demanded. "Let the Hokage lead the Allied shinobi forces?"

...

~ Either way, the staff would want flowers. They always did. ~

...

"So you're a samurai, huh?" Fumiko asked. Eishi and Shiragiku had left the main hall to scout the winding layers of hallways and runy pillars, noting possible escape routes, hiding spots, doing scans for hidden enemies. Mai was nearby, setting a few seals here and there with the permission and assistance of the other samurai.

The pause suggested that maybe the samurai blinked, but Fumiko couldn't tell past his gas-mask-armor-helmet. "Yes."

"What's the difference between a samurai and a shinobi?" she asked curiously. "Do you go on missions, and stuff?"

"No, we don't. We Samurai try not to fight or involve themselves with conflict unless necessary."

"How do you make money, then?" She tugged down on the rim of her scarf, pushing it away from her mouth to un-muffle her words. "Or... what do you do? Do you have to train all the time?"

"We have other jobs," he said. "What about you- what do you do? You don't much look like any shinobi I've seen."

Fumiko, of course, recognized the aversion tactic, but that was okay. She was a complete stranger to this man- and it was a man, she could tell by his voice- and it made sense that he wouldn't want to reveal classified samurai secrets, if that's what they were.

"I'm not," she answered with a sheepish grin. "I ran a Gallery for a while. I'm trying to open it again. I think I will after this whole-" She shifted her weight to her prosthetic, springs squeaking in protest, and gestured vaguely in the air with her hands. "Akatsuki thing is over, you know?"

There was another startled silence, and then, when she said nothing further, he muttered, "Wait, Gallery?"

...

~ When Fumiko finally lifted her eyes, however, stepping into the grass to get out of the way of other pedestrians, she stopped, and blinked. ~

...

Silence reigned. Not even A said anything more, although he was standing again, next to his cratered table space. Gaara's mind whirred. He didn't trust Danzo. He didn't necessarily trust the other Kage, either, but he didn't, on instinct, trust Danzo, and that was bad, if he was to be subordinate to him.

"If you all agree, I will gladly and humbly accept this position," the object of his swirling thoughts said a bit too quickly, his smile a bit too like Sai's in it's brightness, visible eye still closed.

The Raikage visily shook for a moment, breaths more like audible growls, before he took a half-step forward. "Why the Hokage?" he asked loudly enough that his voice echoed off the walls. He turned to Danzo. "This man is also known by the moniker 'The Shinobi of Darkness'!" A scowled. "We can not let him take charge!"

"Then who else?" Mifune asked stiffly in a tone that suggested he knew exactly who the Raikage would pick- himself.

"My village has not produced even one single member of the Akatsuki!" A insisted angrily before he even suggested himself, because he too seemed to recognize the thought. He raised a fist. "Such a crucial role must be filled by the most trustworthy- it ought to be me!"

"I cannot agree to that," Mifune dismissed.

"What did you say?!"

Calmly, the ambassador uncrossed his arms from his sleeves and raised one hand to point at the cratered mess of the Raikage's space in the half-circle. A grunted out a sound of confusion, then irritation as he followed his gaze.

"I am well aware that a certain amount of intensity of strength is necessary to assemble and lead a force of powerhouses such as these. But someone such as yourself, whose acts are ruled by his emotions, would probably end up splintering an allied force. Just as you did that desk," he added, ignoring the Raikage's angry snarl. "I am simply stating my unbiased opinion as a neutral party in these discussions, Lord Raikage"

His gaze shifted to meet Gaara's, who was already wholly focused on his words. With each point he made, Mifune's eyes flicked to the Kage in question. "Lord Kazekage is still too young to spearhead such a venture. He does not have much pull with other nations, and his title as Kazekage alone will not be sufficient. Lord Tsuchikage, on the other hand, is too old, and gives the impression of one who's power has waned. He has also used the Akatsuki too often. He's the least trustworthy among you here.

"And since Lady Mizukage's Hidden Mist is suspected to be the birthplace of the Akatsuki, there is some concern about possible intelligence leaks. People might wonder if there are spies. We don't know why the Akatsuki are gathering the Biju, or what they intend to do with them, but we do know that we can't let them have the Kyuubi. The nine-tails belongs to the Hidden Leaf- thus, I feel it is appropriate that the Hokage be named as leader."

"Regardless of any other concerns, I would never agree- to an Allied Shinobi force- that would compromise the security of my village!" the Raikage seethed, voice teeming rougher, breaths heavier and heavier as he spoke. A was all about action. Mifune wasn't wrong about that, at least. If the Raikage were put in charge, he would put ahead of the Alliance his village, himself, and his priorities, and act without thinking.

Gaara felt, immediately, the small, nearly hidden burst of chakra flaring to life above the Mizukage's banner, but before he could speak or even so much as blink, the curtains wavered, then blasted outward as if caught by a wayward sandstorm's gust around them all. And then, the perpetrator stood directly to his right, and at Mei's left. One of the Mizukage's guard.

"Hokage-sama!" the unfamiliar man with the eyepatch barked. "Please show us the eye you keep covered up under that bandage."

At this, Gaara looked up at him, along with all of the other Kage, including Mei- so at least, Gaara knew that the Mizukage knew nothing of this request.

Danzo's eye... He had assumed that it, along with his left arm, had been damaged somehow in the line of duty- he was a shinobi, after all, and an old one at that, it made sense. Not many lived to his age unscathed. What had the Kiri ninja noticed of the man that Gaara couldn't?

"What's the meaning of this?" Ohnoki spat.

"I believe you stole Uchiha Shisui's eye." the guard declared. His voice was loud, confident and clear. This was not an assumption. "And transplanted it in place of your own.

"It's Uchiha... Shisui's?" Gaara said aloud, voice tinged with just a whisper of curiosity. He ran through names in his head, but nothing clicked- all he knew of the Uchihas was of Sasuke, his older brother Itachi, the legendary power of Madara, and the annihilation of the clan itself. That was all the textbooks ever covered. Fumiko would likely know more about this Shisui- she'd all but memorized decades worth of bingo books during his original death.

The Tsuchikage, for once, seemed speechless, stunned of his words, merely staring at the Mizukage's guard. Gaara wished he knew the man's name, interest going out to his left eye, covered as it was with it's black eyepatch, and how he could possibly kno about Danzo of the Hidden Leaf.

"The man who was praised alongside Itachi?" the Mizukage breathed sharply. Her tone was shot with disbelief at her own shinobi, shoulder jerking up as she turned, almost, to stare at him with shock. "As the Uchiha most gifted with visual jutsu?"

"Yes," he said, glaring intensely with a face of rock at the new Hokage without shifting. Now Gaara's attention was drawn, again, to his eye, and he realized exactly why he was so curious about it. The veins, Gaara thought. They looks exactly like Hyuga Neji's and Hinata's from Konoha. A Byakugan? How? "His particular jutsu let him enter the minds of others. Make them go through phantom experiences of his own choosing- and manipulate them. It was such a top notch visual jutsu that no one even caught on to having been manipulated."

Gaara blinked slowly, then let his eyes narrow. Of course. That prickling discomfort, like when Fumiko practiced her Genjutsu with him, creating a secondary world to overlap his own; nearly impossible to pick apart. His distrust. He chided himself on that- a shinobi, under any circumstance, political or not, needed to trust in his own instincts.

Gaara, aside from a mild suspicion, didn't care if it was a Byakugan or a Sharingan or something else entirely- likely the shinobi had had it for a while. And if Danzo was really manipulating Mifune into suggesting and naming him leader of the Allied forces, with significant control of the other villages... well, then Gaara was content to know that someone had caught it out.

"Hokage!" the Raikage snapped, but nearly without vitriol in his shock. "Don't tell me that Mifune is-"

Mifune gasped, a sharp inhalation of air. "But- but how could...?" He paused, eyes narrowing on the Kiri-nin's patched eye. "Wait, is that-?"

"My right eye is also a precious spoil of war," the nin replied before Mifune could finish his near-accusation. "From a battle against a Hyuga. ... So I'm not really one to cast blame," he admitted. Then he sharpened. Throughout all of this, Danzo seemed perfectly calm, unmoving. "But you cannot trick my eye. I was able to penetrate the genjutsu cast upon the Fourth Mizukage. And thus, I see-"

There was a sudden, unexpected crash, and even Gaara almost flinched, eyes skittering to the Raikage once more, who had slammed another fist into the wood, denting and cracking it alongside it's twin crater. "How dare you!" he screamed, but before he could move, before his livid scowl could stretch any further, something bled out of the floor.

Gaara saw it only because he was already staring across the room, mentally and warily keeping careful eye on the Raikage's space. It unnerved him even as he watched the whiteness bleach into the air and solidify, turning green as it churned into the shape of an unbloomed flower bud, because he couldn't despite his specific sensory abilities pinpoint any sort of chakra from it.

Whatever it was could hide itself.

And break into the Summit room.

The bud broke apart, tendons of green, plant-like vines spreading out around him like leaves. And it was a him, almost- the shape of a man, one half normal, if being all-white could be considered normal; the other, snow white and twisted like the Akatsuki member's orange mask. His eyes were yellow, hair green and shaggy, expression momentarily blank.

Gaara tensed. He could feel Temari and Kankuro's shock.

"Well, hel-looo there!" The thing exclaimed almost joyfully, limbs flailing like a boneless showman's at a circus. One half of his face, the non-twisted part, grinned inhumanely wide, the corner of his mouth nearly touching the gold of his eye.

The curtains flowered once more and immediately, there was his siblings on either side of him as he stood fluidly, along with every other Kage's guards, Kankuro on the desk to his right, crouched, puppet already flying, strings attached; and Temari at his left with his gourd under her arm, tensed for battle, fan folded but at the ready. Gaara's sand swirled, ready to explode through his cork.

"One problem after another!" A snarled, already standing but now flanked by both of his shinobi guard, who were crouched in front of him, each on one side of a crater their Kage had punched into the table. "Now what?!"

"Is he Akatsuki?" Danzo muttered warily, visible eye narrowing.

The Tsuchikage nodded, face twisted for a fight. "Seems so."

The... thing smiled again, nearly as wide as Gaara's sand armor could make his own appear to be. "Guess what?" it sang, back bending at an unnatural angle as it curled around itself to look at all of them. "Uchiha Sasuke has snuck in here! I wonder! Where do you think he could be hiding right now? Any guesses?"

Temari moved in front of him even as the Raikage exclaimed, "What is this?!" because Uchiha Sasuke, former friend of Uzumaki Naruto, former ninja of Konohagakure, was an S-ranked nuke-nin rumored to have joined the Akatsuki, was here.

"Uchiha Sasuke," Gaara breathed, barely a whisper.

"Is it him?" Temari demanded, Kankuro's hissing "What's he doing here?" hot on her heels.

The Akatsuki were here.

Fumiko was right.

...

~ Where were the yellow flowers; the dandelions? ~

...

"Number two battle-ready state alert," the Samurai Fumiko had been talking to for the past almost-hour's armor crackled. A radio. Mai saw her flinch, but the samurai didn't, merely lifting a hand to the collar of his suit. "Search for the intruder, Uchiha Sasuke. Dispatch three squads to the Tower's entrance. Set up a defensive line."

The Samurai pushed something on the inside of his breastplate. "Right."

Mai's sister flinched bodily, spinning on her heel as he barked "Move out!" barely avoiding the rush of armored men dashing out of the huge, pillared room, and facing Mai, who's eyes had rounded slightly before they narrowed again.

"Come on," she heard herself say, feet and hands moving of their own volition and taking her sister's elbow.

Eishi and Shiragiku were still gone. Now she was worried for real, because she'd just been thinking they've been gone for a while when the radio had sparked to life with news of an intruder. They should've been back by now. Rendezvous was always done in thirty minute increments, if they were still exploring by then they would've turned around.

The samurai moved forward, some remaining where they were and the others forming squads and dispatching into the farthest hallway from where they were, heading, Mai assumed, for the entrance, like the order had instructed them to.

Mai spun with her sister, fully intending to go in the direction Gaara had gone. Of course, a samurai immediately was on them both, and she realized- shit, we're foreign. They probably think we did it.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the one Fumiko had made friends with.

"Miss Mai, I'm going to have to ask you not to leave."

"We need to get to the Kazekage," Mai argued. "I need to get Fumiko out of here. If this Sasuke guy-"

"I assure you, you'll both be safe. We're under explicit orders to protect the both of you, by order of Mifune-sama. If you stay with us-"

"No offense," Mai started bluntly, "But Uchiha Sasuke is an S-ranked missing-nin shinobi with the sharingan, working with Akatsuki so who knows who else is with him, and if he shows up, a handful of samurai like you just will not cut it."

The man made an affronted sound. "Are you implying that because we're samurai, we can't defend ourselves against a single shinobi?"

"I'm gonna let you think about that question."

"I'm afraid I can't let you leave," the samurai said coldly. "The Summit is in session. You must stay with us."

"Hey, I said no offense."

"Mai's right," Fumiko said at last, and she realized she was still holding her sister's elbow in a death grip. Mai let her fingers ease, and Fumiko pulled away slightly. "Sasuke's like... like Kage level, like Uzumaki Naruto."

There was a crashing noise then, like the end of the world, pulsing from the door the samurai squads had just gone out of. Immediately, there was shouting- both screams from the other room and yells from those still in the lobby-esque pillared area.

Ranks dissolved. They ran, like idiots, towards the sounds of battle and destruction and some kind of high, keening laughter that was mad, including the one who'd just been trying to stop them leaving. There was no silence after the doors finally banged back shut, people still crying out, things still smashing apart, but there was an echo as they slammed closed.

Instantly Mai had her sister's wrist again. "Come on. We have to go."

Fumiko didn't move. "What about Eishi and Shiragiku?"

Mai pursed her lips. If they had somehow ended up on the other side of that door... Team Otokaze was a piercing squad. They pierced through enemies and places alike, hectic in a fight and suave enough in an infiltration. She wouldn't be surprised if they'd found some other way back and circled to check the entrance.

She didn't want to think about that. If she did she would run into that loud fray.

"They'll be fine," she yelled over the noise. "We have to get you-"

"But the samurai will die if-"

"I don't-" care. "I'm sorry, Fumiko, but we can't go back there. We have to find Gaara. Maybe the Kages can do something, but they probably don't even know what's going on. The guy with the radio's out there, too."

...

~ The field was carpeted over with white. Where before there had been yellow flower heads, there were now puffy white fluffballs on green stalks with leaves. ~

...

"It doesn't look like he'll ever rise again."

Not that any of them truly wanted nor cared for the white man to get up again. But it was important to make sure he wouldn't take them by surprise.

The plant-like man was still only halfway out of the ground, flytrap-esque leaves and the lower half of his body still fused into the floor, white spreading like a frost a foot or so the width of him, back bent backwards in death. He tried not to let the curve of it's snapped neck bother him, fingers squeezing in their hold of his arms as he maintained a cool exterior.

Gaara was itching, twitchy at a sound, ready to burst out the doors behind Mifune and get down to the second level where he'd left Fumiko and Mai and her team. This thing's ability to just slide through the ground concerned him, especially given his distinct lack of full chakra, unable to use Earth Release.

Uchiha Sasuke. Out of all the Akatsuki, what business did Sasuke have here? He didn't seem the type, from the stories he'd been told and the information he'd been given, to follow orders that didn't benefit him in some way. So why attack the Summit? And if this... whatever it was was a part of the Akatsuki, why would it have announced the Uchiha's presence?

It didn't sit right with him. Something that Fumiko had said, back when he first had begun trying to get the Kage together, kept whirring back to the front of his mind: "I think they want a show."

He'd hoped originally to somehow get her to be in the Summit room with them. Fumiko was an excellent mediator, able to see all sides of any argument except flat-out personal cruelty, and most likely she would have at least calmed down the few explosive conflicts they'd already had. But she'd had to stay with the Samurai at the bottom levels.

And really, Gaara didn't trust them to keep his family safe. Not when it was from Uchiha Sasuke, who could take down Naruto. His only real comfort at this point was that Sasuke wouldn't have any reason to attack them.

"Ao-sama." Mifune commanded the Kiri-nin. "Please confirm whether the Hokage's visual jutsu is still engaged."

"No," he responded immediately, without hesitation. "Right now the flow in his chakra network is quiet. The jutsu's undone."

"All of you just relax," Danzo said, like they were getting angry over nothing. As though it was perfectly acceptable to manipulate the neutral party of the Five Kage Summit towards his own favor."It's not a visual jutsu that I can use that many times in a day."

"Be quiet, I shall decide that." Ao snapped. "For you are a man who simply cannot be trusted."

"I can't believe the Byakugan fell into someone else's hands," The Hokage muttered aloud, musing and still completely relaxed. Gaara tensed, and Kankuro touched his shoulder lightly. He understood. "If a Konoha Hyuga turned traitor, I would've taken care of them at once."

There was another tense quiet. Gaara looked towards the Kiri-nin to see how he would react to the barely veiled threat. His blood hummed beneath his skin, resonating with the sluggish whirlpool of chakra shifting the gourd under Temari's arm. His eldest sister carefully leaned it up against the desk in front of him.

Finally, the blue-haired man with the Byakugan spoke, expression hard but unreadable.

"You're probably planning to dispose of me now that I know your little secret," he said flatly. "Better think again."

The Mizukage, so far the only one still seated aside from Ohnoki, lifted her chin from her crossed fingers, with a nearly petulant displeased turn of her lips. "I'll fight you myself, if need be. Especially if your visual jutsu may be connected somehow with the one that manipulated the Fourth Mizukage."

So would he, if it came to that. The room was no longer soundproofed, courtesy of the Fifth Raikage, and at the moment Gaara could only feel dull tremors through the soles of his feet, something he wasn't entirely sure the other Kage felt or not. But it didn't mean danger, necessarily- it could be anything, from the snowstorm outside to the shifting of an old building to the Raikage going through the floor rather than using the stairs.

"Lord Hokage," Mifune said gruffly. Danzo didn't so much as open his eye, although that might have been a good thing. "All ninjutsu is prohibited here! You have lost trust and credibility. A shame, since I may have still chosen you had you not resorted to such tactics."

"But 'may have' chosen wasn't good enough," Danzo replied, voice raising slightly for the first time since this meeting had begun. His eye opened, narrowed and arrogant, as if he were talking to children rather than the leaders of the Elemental Nations' Hidden Villages, although they didn't stray from his hands, still calmly folded on the desk. "I am prepared to do whatever it takes in order to protect the shinobi world. It's imperative that our whole world unite as one; just as the first Hokage Hashirama brought together his clan and founded the Hidden Leaf village."

Now he looked up. Gaara didn't react, but he felt his siblings bristle at the pure amount of condescension in his one visible olive-green eye, fingers tensing. "Now, we must merge all the villages and create one shinobi world. This shall never be accomplished through discussion and negotiation."

"But it takes time and patience to actualize one's ideals," the Tsuchikage cut in. His old face for once looked wizened and knowing. "Impatience makes one shortsighted and invites failure. That's what happened to you."

"Taking the time to do it morally and ethically will result in no change." The Hokage's voice wasn't even defensive, only haughty in the non self-absorbed way that one took on when they were right. Like saying that the Hidden Sand, although financially more tied than the other villages, was doing well and thriving. "And the Akatsuki will eventually destroy the whole shinobi world."

"But your dream is nothing more than an impossibility," Ohnoki said with finality. "It may sound noble, but in the end you'll only bring distrust, ill feelings, hatred and resentment. Why, Danzo, we can't even trust your words at this point!"

"It doesn't matter whether you trust me or not," Danzo argued, voice just as final as the Tsuchikage's. Results are necessary!"

Gaara's eyes flickered down to his gourd, mouth set in an impassive, perhaps disappointed line.

That was it.

This man, Danzo, was a carbon copy of Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage. That was why his words irritated him so. Gaara's father had cared about the village as a whole- the idea of it, and the existence of it. The wellbeing of one or two were miniscule in the face of that. His wellbeing; his siblings' had they resonated with the demon he once had. Gaara's mother.

That was why he had trusted Orochimaru, after all, despite the signs. The Hidden Leaf was in the way of Sunagakure's wellbeing, and so he'd set out to destroy it entirely, and ended up sacrificing both his son and a countless number of Sunagakure shinobi for a futile and unnecessary cause.

And why he had really lost his youngest son to anger and hatred and revenge. What would he have thought of Gaara now, if he were still alive? Would he still be Kazekage? Would he have been proud of his son's choices?

Maybe not. Gaara chose love, and he chose peace. Not the ideal of a perfect, untouchable village.

"If we can't even trust each other..." Gaara was almost surprised at the clarity of his voice, the way it bounced and rang off the walls, despite it's disuse. He looked at each and every person as he spoke in turn, Kage or not. The Guards' eyes, the samurai's eyes, they all widened fractionally as he met their gazes. "If that's the state of our world and of being human... then we have no future."

Small, starved, breathless inhalations of air filled the silence beyond his words, and Gaara found every pair of eyes locked on him.

...

~ She knelt and picked one to study it. Actually, it looked like an ordinary yellow dandelion from the stalk to the leaves, but the head was totally different, petals gone entirely, little fluffy parachutes of white in their place. ~

...

It was like Konoha all over again, leaving behind the helpless, only with less mortal terror.

Oh, there still was mortal terror, but much less of it.

The sounds stopped suddenly. Tense silence ensued, and when her sister tugged insistently and silently on her arm, Fumiko didn't complain, pressing her lips together for fear of being heard through the thick, heavy doors.

"C'mon," Mai whispered urgently as they started for the hall closest to their right. "There's a good chance we can find Eishi and Shiragiku-"

The door blew inwards as though by a sandstorm gust.

Mai snarled suddenly, twisting and stepping behind Fumiko even before she really registered the threat, crossing her blades just in time to splatter the rushing suiton jutsu. Fumiko skittered around.

She stammered, very softly, "Sasuke?"

Uchiha Sasuke was staring back at her. He was flanked by two other shinobi Fumiko had never seen before halfway across the room, one with white hair and sharp teeth he used to grin at them, the other with shocking orange hair; his arm was consumed with scales. The white haired one held a broken sword in one hand, although despite it's length, the sheer size of the blade led her to believe that whole, it was deadly.

No, Fumiko realized. She did recognize the white-haired boy from her bout of nearly obsessive Bingo book research. His name was... Sigutsu? Saigucho? Oh, right- Suigetsu. Suiton user and known Swordsman of the Mist, rumored to be traveling with Sasuke and a medic kunoichi known as- Karin. But she had no idea who the boy with the orange hair was, the one with the mangled, reptilian-looking left arm.

"Which one?" Mai hissed.

"Hmm," Sasuke mused before she could answer, staring back at her with coldly dispassionate pebble black eyes. Not like Gaara's eyes when he was fighting, determined and confident, but just... Cold. Fumiko shivered as his dark, biting chakra washed over her. "Do I know you?"

"Never met you before in my life," Mai snapped. "But I'm not picky. I'll kill you anyways if you take one step closer."

"Not you," he sniffed, jutting his chin out at Fumiko. "Her."

"Eh?" Mai turned. "Hey Fumiko, do you know this guy?" Her muscles went rigid, blades crossing. "Is this Sasuke? The one with the duck-ass hair?"

Sasuke blinked slowly. "Ah," he said, lips twitching slightly, not quite a smile nor a frown. "I remember you now, Fumiko. The girl tagging after Gaara during the Chuunin Exams, correct?"

"Yeah," she answered, not smiling for once. "Sasuke, where were you? I fought in that mission to get you back, against Kimimaro. We all did."

"Did you? I was under the impression you were a weak-willed civilian."

Mai scowled, turning back around before Fumiko could answer. "As much as I would like to see her whack you upside the head with her staff, I'm supposed to be guarding her. So you're Uchiha Sasuke, huh?" Mai's voice sharpened. "The one Naruto keeps talking about?"

"Hn," was his response.

"Hey Sasuke, who's the pregnant chick?" Suigetsu said rather loudly. "What's she have to do with the Sand's Kazekage?"

Fumiko almost, almost flinched and drew back slightly, hands on her stomach. "Suigetsu," she said for Mai's benefit. "Suiton user of the Village hidden in the Mist, S-rank nuke-nin."

"Damn." Mai already knew enough about Sasuke to know that she couldn't match his Amaterasu with her flames and not to ask. Her blades glimmered with water droplets, shiny and silver, light fracturing away from the serrated edges. "Okay. Fine."

"What are you gonna do, kid?" Suigetsu snarked. Then he tilted his head. "What are you here for, anyway? Hey Sasuke, isn't this some Kage political meeting?"

"Indeed. What are you here for?"

"Don't you remember?" Fumiko said, raising one hand slightly. His red eyes spun sharingan as he followed the movement, but it was just a harmless gesture. "I told you before. Ne, maybe you were too drugged?"

Sasuke arched a brow. "Hardly. I was simply giving you the benefit of the doubt that you'd dropped that ridiculous 'support'."

Fumiko hummed as she thought about something. "Hey, Sasuke, I just remembered something." She paused as he studied her. "Did you ever eat that fudge brownie?"

Apparently that offended him, because his eyes darkened immediately, as did the temperature in the hollow stone room. Suigetsu and \the other boy tensed. "Suigetsu. Juugo. We can't risk them alerting Danzo or the other Kage."

Mai crouched, sliding back and pushing Fumiko out of the puddle of water below them that, Fumiko realized, could have been used at any time. "Just try it."

Fumiko realized in that moment that Mai, devil though she was with her twin blades, wouldn't win this kind of fight, and put a hand on her shoulder. "We need to get out of here," she whispered. "Sasuke... Sasuke works with Orochimaru, and he's really strong-"

Mai raised her arm to shake her off. "So what? I am too."

"Gaara said-"

"Gaara assigned me to keep you alive," Mai said with a tipping smirk as Sasuke and Suigetsu and Juugo stepped forward. "And dammit, that's what I intend on doing. We wouldn't make it anyway. Disorient them if you can."

"Right. But are you sure we shouldn't-"

"Enough." Sasuke's voice was, flat, toneless, seething. It went straight down Fumiko's spine. He sounded like Gaara had, many many years ago when Shukaku forced him to kill things, when it made him not care, when it hurt him, when the person he killed was dead to him anyway.

Only Sasuke didn't have the Ichibi.

This was all him.

Fumiko let her already raised hand creep backwards to her modified Bakuryou. Fortunately, the three highly skilled sets of shinobi eyes caught her in the act, twitching to her figure.

Fumiko pulsed her chakra- now neatly contained within two gates- and tried her hardest to make the first few seconds count, wrenching reality upside down and inverted as she mussed up colors, figures, sounds, and senses. No time for subtlety, or to shift their minds slightly. Besides, she would only be able to catch two of the three of them.

Suigetsu and Juugo staggered, and Mai attacked.

Sasuke slipped through her chakra like water, sharingan cutting through the illusion in less than a half a second. Suigetsu promptly threw up water probably meant for jutsu.

Fumiko's fingers twisted into seals that wove strength into her genjutsu, but then Sasuke was in her face and she had to jump back, skidding slightly as her prosthetic slipped. The movement made her cringe as her stomach twinged.

"So, who's child do you carry? Gaara's?" Sasuke asked calmly as Fumiko really did pull out her Bakuryou and hold it defensively in front of her. In Fumiko's condition her taijutsu would suck, but she had to at least try while Mai was tangled with Suigetsu. She could hear the clangs as she slipped about, blade clashing with Juugo's arm.

As long as she kept the genjutsu active and didn't die in the process...

When she didn't answer, only raising her weighted weapon defensively and twisting the top, Sasuke smirked. "Don't worry. I'm not after him at all."

"Then who are you after? Danzo?" she questioned, recalling Sasuke's earlier words. "Why go after Konoha's Hokage now?"

A blur. Fumiko struck out, chain hissing as she released it, at the spot where the chakra fluctuation would end. A grunt as it wrapped around his wrist, and then she was hit squarely in the chest and sent flying back.

The Bakuryou was torn out of her hands and she landed on her shoulder, hard, skidding. The Genjutsu faded instantly, but from Mai's wild shout she supposed it didn't matter.

Fumiko stuck her hand in her pouch for a half second before throwing it forward as if to catch his next blow. Instead Sasuke actually staggered because the seal in the palm of her hand seared into his heart and tried to stop it. Lightning.

Sasuke backed off, although Fumiko was sure he could easily have killed her already, had he been trying to. He looked surprised, though, wordlessly studying the seal burning out on his knuckles. "Fuuinjutsu?"

"I'm a medic," Fumiko gasped, pulsing chakra through her stomach quickly to check on her boys. They squirmed slightly but weren't damaged from the impact.

Dust scattered into the air as Mai shunshinned between them, having abandoned her fight with the other two as she realized the third was missing. She crouched defensively. "Hey, jerk, hasn't anyone ever told you it's not polite to hit pregnant girls?"

Sasuke flicked the seal off to the ground next to her fallen Bakuryou. Fumiko bit her lip as she realized the prototype weapon seal wasn't good enough. Neither was her taijutsu.

She knew she was pregnant and she knew that even before that she hadn't been anywhere near Sasuke's level, but still...

"Hasn't anyone ever told you not to play with fire?" He asked almost blandly at Mai's ashy lips. Suiton user or not, she had scored a good one to Suigetsu's face, if his stagger and tight hold on his cheek was any indication. Juugo hadn't moved towards them at all.

Mai snorted. "This coming from someone who probably uses Amaterasu to cook his meals."

"You're very annoying," he allowed. "But I need to end this now."

He dashed forward. Mai's blades whistled through the air but were batted away before Fumiko had even registered the swing. They clanged against stone, clattering across the floor. Mai cursed, the only thing she had time to do before she was picked up by the neck.

Mai writhed and spat in the air, clutching at Sasuke's iron fingers, but he didn't even budge, just stared curiously at her face. Fumiko could only see the back of her head, all wild black hair and red kunoichi top. She couldn't move. What do I do? What do I do?

"Well," he said suddenly. "You aren't an Uchiha, are you?"

"Hell no, and glad of it," Mai hiss/grunted. "You're all crazy psycho bastards!"

"Interesting," Sasuke hummed. "Perhaps you're connected to the bloodline somewhere. Though I can't say it was anything less than stupid to take me on with only two tomoe."

Mai wheezed out something unintelligible and probably offensive. Sasuke continued to stare at her, only now there was a certain intensity to it. Mai's arms and pinwheeling legs went limp, head still raised, dazed by something.

There was a beat of silence.

"Interesting," Sasuke said again.

Then Mai screamed and he threw her sideways into the nearest wall.

Fumiko didn't quite scream, but the yelp was loud. Mai burrowed feet into the wall, breathless screech suddenly silent, stone crushed and cracking around her until there was a jagged, spiked hole in the wall. "Mai!"

Usually her sister could handle being thrown into walls, but Sasuke had somehow knocked her cleanly unconscious. Aside from the crumbling of rock, there was no sound from the crater. Fumiko raised her hands thinking Suiton, but she knew it wouldn't make a difference.

Even Mai didn't stand a chance.

Wind shifted her hair slightly. With frightened, wide eyes, she saw his red irises inches from hers, blood dripping from one eye.

Pain exploded in her head, and everything went dark.

...

~ A breeze picked up, and with the sudden gust her hair slid over her shoulders and the plant stem bent, leaves waving. ~

...

Sasuke watched passively as the brown haired girl's brown eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she crumpled to the stone ground with a sickening crunch of her skull. The seal clutched in her hand that she'd pulled out rolled, wrinkled and squashed, from her limp fingers.

"Well. That was kind of overkill, wasn't it?" Suigetsu said almost gleefully as he inspected the hole in the wall. For good reason, Sasuke supposed- he was still a little crosseyed from the little girl's attacks. Pathetic, really.

"Let's go." Sasuke said, turning to the door of the summit. Completely soundproof, he knew. They would still be unaware of the fight that had just occurred. But all hell would break loose once they knew, if he remembered anything about Gaara's protective behavior during the Chuunin Exams.

Juugo was immediately at his side, but Suigetsu scowled. "Wait, aren't we going to kill them?"

Sasuke hesitated, throwing a cold glance to the sprawled girl on the hard stone floor lying on her side. He could still tell despite her position that she was pregnant, sprawled as she was on her side, hair draping over her face and hiding it from view. A few feet away laid her odd weapon, a sawed-looking piece of Bo staff with a chail and weight, lodged with a kunai on one end.

"No." He glared at Suigetsu, who quailed slightly. "Now let's go."

...

~ Before she could wipe the hair out of her eyes, the fluff started to... fly. ~

...

"Eh?" the Tsuchikage started, squinting at him. Gaara looked right back, calm and confident. These people were people only- and they were like his elders, caught in the ways of the past. And if they were going to survive, they couldn't remain how they were. Gaara's expression cleared- not emotionless, just... clear. "And what does that mean?"

"Without mutual trust, and understanding..." Gaara let his eyes fall again in thought, but only slightly. "All that will remain in this world is fear and terror." He looked directly at the Tsuchikage, letting his eyes burn as brightly as Naruto's confidence, as Fumiko's smiles, Mai's anger. His siblings' stubbornness. "I simply can't tolerate giving up so easily. Or any plan that doesn't incorporate morality."

"You pose such difficult concepts so simply," Ohnoki said, lips set in a poorly disguised sneer. "But you're a green brat who knows nothing about running a village!"

Beside him, Kankuro stiffened and raised an arm, not in attack but in defense, and anger. Before he could get a single word out, before Gaara could nod and let him know that, yes, he could handle this old man just fine, the Tsuchikage spoke again, not kindly, with schadenfreude cheer. "But I'll tell you what. Now's your chance to ask anything you'd like! As your senior, I'll answer any question you have." His head tilted, and he snickered. "Eh, Danzo?"

Kankuro's anger snapped, and he slammed his hand down against the table, the othr coming up like he would be able to punch the other man from across the horseshoe seats. "Say again, old man?!"

Temari was quick to snap an arm out in front of Gaara to her other brother to calm, and restrain, him if need be. "Don't do it, Kankuro," she warned, though her voice, too, was strained with disgust. "He's still Tsuchikage. He's a village leader."

Kankuro tensed even further, leaning forward on the balls of his feet, like he didn't care, which, if Gaara knew his brother at all, he didn't.

"Hold on," one of Ohnoki's guard demanded suspiciously. "Did she say 'still' leader?"

"Ignore 'em," the other said with humor, smirking.

"Then," Gaara said, gazing past his siblings, and the guards, to Ohnoki's mirth-filled, condescending eyes. "Let me ask you this."

Ohnoki brightened smugly. "Sure!" he leaned back slightly. "Go ahead, no holds barred; ask away!"

Gaara paused, just for a moment, closing his eyes and forcing himself not to sigh, before finally looking up, once more, unwavering.

"When did all of you... forsake yourselves?"

Ohnoki flinched bodily, a shocked ripple that threw him back in his seat. His voice was a strained whisper. "What?"

Kankuro smirked, hands going to his hips, gaze cutting over the others with satisfaction. "Heh."

Temari looked back at him, Gaara meeting her eyes. "All right, Gaara. What are we gonna do now? We once worked with the Hidden Leaf on their mission to retrieve Sasuke." Her chin tilted up in unspoken question. "But he's sunk so low, he's joined the Akatsuki."

I truly am sorry, Naruto, Gaara allowed himself to think, just for a private second. But I don't think he can be saved.

"So Uchiha... Sasuke, huh?" he mused softly.

Then it was too much, and Gaara tensed for half a second before jumping for the hole in the wall, far above his desk. Behind him, he could feel his siblings' surprise, and heard his brother's startled "Hey! Don't leave without your guards!" before they followed on his heels.

...

~ They scattered off the stem in tons of little fuzzy white pieces, spinning, she realized now, with seeds, blowing all across the field with the light breeze like sand caught up in one of Gaara's moods. ~

...

When they first heard pillars falling and crashing, Eishi and Shiragiku had turned right back around.

Now, nearly to the entrance of the tunnel they had left in, they had heard Mai scream. Loud, wailing, terrified, stark and raw like her throat was bleeding, breathless like she was being asphyxiated, thick and like her own personal world was ending and she'd found herself in Hell.

"M-"

Shiragiku grabbed the hood of his jacket, his other hand clapping over his mouth, and pulled him back. The screaming stopped with the disgusting sound of flesh and rock colliding, and then just grinding, sanding away.

"Shhria-"

"Shh." His partner's voice was thin and strained. "Don't."

Voices murmured in the hallway. Eishi tore out of Shiragiku's grip, but, sagging, leaned against the wall to slide closer rather than run out. There was a thud like a body hitting the ground, and then a few sharp words. Eishi didn't have to try to sense their chakras- powerful, mixed with hate and strength. A fourth joined in.

"I've located Danzo."

"Good. Let's move quickly."

"Right."

By the time a set of doors opened and closed, Eishi was practically vibrating with tension, nerves dripping with adrenaline.

They left.

He burst into the open lobby to silence. Where were the Samurai? Where was- Eishi's head whipped to his right, and there was Fumiko, crumpled on the ground. Even trying he couldn't sense her, which was terrifying. Eyes flicking to the left, there was nothing- no; a hole in the wall. One hand dangled in his line of sight, held straight out by rocks, tan fingers limp.

Please, no.

...

~ As Fumiko watched, more flowers did the same thing, seeds scattering in an array of white showers. ~

...

He could feel the Raikage's power; Sasuke's seething, dark chakra. If he tried, Gaara could detect his siblings just behind him, the Kage and the Samurai on the top floor, the few scattered about on other floors, and Mai's and Eishi's and Shiragiku's. At least twenty samurai were missing from his first count, which was what started the little seed of panic growing in the pit of his stomach- and then he'd realized.

He couldn't feel Fumiko's chakra.

He was rushing to Mai's, twisted and weak, and to her teammates', because that's where she would be.

To avoid the fight below, Gaara skirted the wide whole someone- probably the Raikage A himself- had punched through the second floor into the first, and kept right on going, towards thr stairs to the other rooms. Thankfully his siblings said nothing, though he could practically taste their confusion.

Down the stairs. Through the maze of halls, right, left, left, straight, straight.

And then it opened up into the main room Gaara had left everyone behind in, only to discover that the samurai were gone, every single one of them save for a few in the room nearby where the Raikage, Sasuke and his teammates were duking it out. He took in everything at once, eyes flashing.

Shiragiku was the closest to him, kneeling on the ground, Fumiko's shoulders lfited. She was a dead weight in his arms as he felt about in his satchel. Farther away was Eishi, wall-walked up the stone walls crouching, standing parallel with the floor and digging pieces of rock away from a crater in the ruined rune-covered section of wall, holding a wrist, pulling.

He took in everything, felt the vibration of his siblings catching up, sensed the surprise as Shiragiku saw him.

"Fumiko."

...

~ "Whoa!" she exclaimed, wide-eyed. "What are they doing?" ~

...

Eishi ran, Shiragiku on his heels, chasing after the plumes of sand cradling their teammate and her sister as they raced up the stairs after the zipping desert pieces.

The Kazekage knelt, movements jerky enough to nearly rip Fumiko away from his teammate, fingers running against her face, then across her skin; feeling at her neck, her chest, her wrists, and sighing with relief that almost sounded like a sob when he detected the same heartbeat Shiragiku had just announced moments before.

The sand reached the top of the stairs and took a sharp turn into a hallway. They followed, trying their damndest to keep up, because if they lost them then they would be lost, unable to find their way about or carry out the Kazekage's wishes.

He wasted no further time, arm coming up in a smooth, puppet, practiced motion. The cork dissolved and sand rushed out for a split second before he brought his hand back down, and it slammed into the stone floors, grinding away, splitting the rock, kicking up dust as it drilled into the ground like a solid square fist. Eishi could feel chakra burning into the new sand as it formed.

They reached another set of stairs and climbed, climbed, climbed.

The rumbling, tearing, ripping, shrieking sounds stopped and then the Kazekage lifted his hand oce more, and the sand came back out of the ground, and there was more of it, now, half going into his gourd once more and half slithering through the air, curling under his arm and lifting against Fumiko; pushing through the cracks in the wall he was standing on and gently pulling Mai out, lacerated and bleeding and unconscious.

They zipped past some startled samurai, who yelled after them but couldn't keep up. Samurai, Eishi quickly discovered, were nothing to shinobi.

Gaara-sama rose. The sand beds hovered at his shoulder height above the ground. "Go," he ordered. "Follow my sand to the Kage Summit room. Do not let anyone there, Kage, guard, samurai- let no one touch them, even if they're a medical nin. When you get there, touch my sand. I'll feel your chakra."

"Yes. But, Gaara-sama," Shiragiku started. "What about you?"

Eishi knew why they were going to the Kage room. Even if he didn't want anyone else he didn't know touching the Mitsuwa sisters, and despite the fact that it was the biggest target, it also had the most manpower. That was where they would be safest.

"I'll be fine." 

After an eternity, it seemed, they finally reached the doors- well, technically they reached a big hole in the wall and decided it was close enough, ducking inside after the bulbs of sand. The others in the room- samurai, Kage and guard- blinked at them, startled.

His Kazekage moved, raised one hand and touched Fumiko's face, leaned in close. Eishi saw his lips move, but heard no words. He wasn't even sure if Gaara-sama was whispering or just mouthing something important. Feeling nosy, he looked away, but Gaara straightened immediately. "Now go."

"Hey," Eishi said for lack of a better word. "Gaara sent us."

Shiragiku touched his fingers to Fumiko's sand, and it jumped to life along with Mai's, drifting to the side corner of the room before dropping, filtering to the ground,; gently letting them lie. And then, to Eishi's surprise, it swirled over the two completely, doming and hardening to a thick crust.

He, like any shinobi of Sunagakure, knew about and was proud of his Kazekage's affinity for the sand, including the ability to combine with other minerals in the ground to make his sand stronger, as well as create new sand, both of which he was realizing Gaara-sama had used merely five or ten minutes prior.

"What? Children?" an old man scoffed. From his positionin front of the kanji tapestries, Eishi guessed he was the Tsuchikage. "What are you doing here?"

"Fumiko-sama and Mai-chan were hurt, so he sent us here," Shiragikku said quietly. "We are to protect them."

"That upstart."

...

~ "Never seen a dandelion before, miss?" someone asked, tone amused, and she startled, dropping the stem and glancing up to see a woman with black hair watching her. "Those are wishing flowers." ~

...

Gaara could see how this would play out as he watched the Raikage's foot come down.

It might break through, and might not. Quite possibly, it could kill Sasuke right then and there if it did, ending the fight instantly. But Gaara wasn't so sure he wanted it to end quite like that- he wanted to speak with him, despite the blind rage filling up his lungs and his blood and his sand.

He could still feel the residual tickle of his barrier left behind in the Kage Summit room. It took barely any energy or focus at all to maintain, but it was enough- just enough to stain Gaara's vision red.

Usually he wouldn't have hesitated to kill him, or to let him die, for what he'd done. While Fumiko's chakra had been merely dampened, put out like a flame and sucked dry to the point that she passed out, Mai's was wild, flailing, angry, terrified. She was dreaming, trapped in a nightmare that no amount of chakra could break, and Gaara had no doubt that it was all- his- fault.

But this was a different case. If Gaara chose vengeance in this moment exactly, he would prove no better than the hellbent Uchiha.

Besides... this should have been Naruto's fight to have.

So, he wanted to speak with him, even though he already knew Sasuke couldn't be saved, even though he knew, deep inside, that he didn't want him to be saved at all.

And in any case, whether this attack killed Uchiha Sasuke or not, the Raikage would be burned again, perhaps incurably if it spread quickly enough across his body from his leg. And despite the Raikage's brashness, his anger, Gaara wanted no more death than was necessary.

His cork dissolved with barely a wayward thought, and Gaara sent his sand flowing forward to explode under the force of the Raikage's attack.

...

~ Fumiko was intrigued. So they were still dandelions! "Wishing flowers?" ~

...

There were bodies, faceless bodies, scattered on the ground, maybe two, two hundred fifty yards ahead of her.

Mai looked around wildly, confused, until she hit upon her friends and family- Fumiko, Kankuro, Gaara, her mother, Temari, Matsuri, Otokaze-sensei, Eishi, Shiragiku, Shikamaru, Lee, Naruto, Kiba, Lizard, Rattlesnake, Baki, and Squirrel-taicho, standing among the ruins, picking through the death, trying to save people.

They were cast in a strange light- the sky was reddish in color.

"The hell is going on?" she asked loudly, starting to trot to the mess. "What-"

Someone screamed- low and deep and bawling- Squirrel-taicho, and then he fell in a geyser of his own blood as a shadow fell upon him. Mai bucked, stumbling back a few steps in alarm, going for her blades, but it was too late.

"Taicho!" she screeched.

Suddenly she was there somehow, in the middle of the ruin of a- a- a house, she realized, from Sunagakure, a bunch of houses. My home? She flinched violently, jerking as she heard another wail.

To her right, Matsuri dropped.

But now Mai saw the attacker, a shadowy figure, a-

Sasuke!

"Matsuri!" Mai spat. "Hey! Leave her alone!"

Just, it seemed, to spite her, Sasuke studied his blade, twirled it in his fingers, then stabbed it downwards.

There was a high keening sound, then the gurgle of blood, then nothing.

"Matsuri!"

And then Sasuke was gone, and there was a low, bone-deep groan behind her. Mai whirled to meet Kankuro's eyes, and he opened his mouth like he would say something, but only spat blood instead.

But it pulsed in her head anyway: Save me.

And then it was everywhere- Save me! Save me! Save us!

They were starting to run, but walls of bars like grotesque twisted fences shot up, penning them into the mess of blood and bodies and rubble. They yelled out and beat at the bars- even Gaara, Mai noticed numbly through the pounding of her blood- but they were trapped.

A wet squelching sound as the sword exited Kankuro's chest. He fell like a stone.

Sasuke was there. "Who's next?"

Mai howled and went for him, charging like a bull with her swords raised, but then he was behind her faster than eyes could follow, and her swords clattered across the floor. In a split second, he grabbed both her wrists and planted his foot against her back. She slammed painfully to the ground with a sickening wet popping sound as both her shoulders dislocated.

Mai screamed.

She tried to get up with her legs only, but there was a sharp, sudden, screaming, boiling pain in her right knee as Sasuke stabbed it through with his sword. Mai's vision tilted with red mist.

"Weak," Sasuke snorted above her. "You can't even save yourself, let alone them."

"Leave my friends alone," she gurgled.

A pause.

"No."

It was a horror show. Something out of a vile campfire story meant to scare ANBU officers into doing their jobs right.

Blood. Blood showers and puddles and stained teeth and stained hands as they were torn to pieces, ripped apart, because the murder weapon pinned her to the ground. He gouged out their eyes and ripped out nails and tongues, breaking fingers and bones and peeling skin like wrappers, plunging his greedy fingers into their stomachs and chests and coming out with slimy purple liverish baubles of fleshy intestine and organs.

Mai wailed and bawled and screamed her head off as her friends were picked off one by one, stop! Stop! unable to look away as they pleaded with her to help them, fight, goddammit, get up and fight, she screamed at herself, but she couldn't, could only squirm in place, and somehow she didn't pass out from pain-

Shikamaru. Temari. Eishi. Lizard. Baki. Kiba. Her mother. Naruto. Shiragiku. Rattlesnake. Otokaze-sensei. Lee.

Gaara's was horrifying, the enemy moving fast enough to shatter bone with every hit until he couldn't stand and couldn't see, fingernails piercing and dragging the sand from his skin and then the skin from his muscles slowly so he didn't die like a T&I interrogation and blood blood blood, it was pouring in rivers around this entire place, pooling towards her like dark streams through the broken chunks and shatters of walls, it was in her mouth, on her skin, like a brand, Kami, you killed them, they're all dying save them save them fuck fuck get up you trained for this you have to-

Gaara stopped struggling. Sasuke stood, hands dripping with blood and gore.

"One left," he said.

"Run, Fumiko!" Mai shouted desperately.

"Mai, help me!" Fumiko screamed, sobbing in her terror.

Her death was not the same as the others. Mai opened her mouth again, spitting out blood and dirt and tears, and then it was over with a loud spine chilling snap. Fumiko's head turned backwards and she crumpled.

OhmyKamiohmyKamiohmy-

"Miss?"

Run.

A little boy, no older than five or six, with a featureless face that she forgot even as she looked at him.

"Miss, I'm scared," he whispered.

Mai was heaving, eyes pinballing in her head, blood spotting and flowing across her skin and into her throat, crying so badly that it hurt, arms either burning or going numb, and her knee, fuck, her knee, shattered and twisted and impaled and ohgoddamnKamishit they're all dead!

"Run," she said, voice broken and soft and wobbly with tears. She knew, she knew what was going to happen.

Fingers wrapped around the back of the little kid's collar and lifted him off his feet. The kid cried out, legs pinwheeling in terror. Mai's eyes followed against her will, barely able to look out of the corner of her eye, tilting her cheek against the sandy concrete.

She didn't even remember who the killer was anymore, but he stared at the kid's writhing form, like he was trying to decide which piece to rip out first. His teeth were red with blood and smeared with skin from where he'd torn out throats, but he seemed entirely passive.

His eyes flicked down towards her, once, and she felt it- fear.

"You should've been stronger," he said.

He started with the eyes.

When he was finished the kid wasn't even recognizable anymore; he'd probably been dead long before her enemy was done. Sasuke dropped him so that the blood from his jelly-filled sockets seeped onto her cheek, Kami, she was looking right at him.

Mai clenched her eyes shut, blood and tears melting down her cheeks.

And then she was standing, and there were bodies, and she could see her friends in the distance.

Somebody screamed.

...

~ "If you make a wish and blow the seeds away, they say your wish comes true." ~

...

Fumiko had to fight tooth and claw to wake up.

It was hard. Everything hurt; her head, her skin, her eyes, her joints, in the deep, throbbing intensity of chakra deprivation. It wasn't anywhere near restored yet- she was surprised, even as her eyes opened, that she was able to think at all.

She was lying in her side, hands carefully placed near her face, so that the first thing she noticed in the darkness was her fingers. And it was dark, exceedingly so, like there was no light left in the world, and in the darkness came the sound of slow, steady hissing.

Groaning, gasping, Fumiko rolled herself over onto her knees and elbows, struggling to push herself up, elbows shaking. She leaned up against the inside of the sphere of sand for support. As she did, she heard something, a low murmur through the gentle slush of sand that, although crystal-hard, was giving her air.

Eyes flickering to the ground she had just laid, Fumiko saw her sister. Mai was lying on her back, arms at her sides almost like she was at attention, although her legs were too disorderly for that, one knee bent. Her face, completely calm as though in dreamless sleep, physically masked the torment of her pulsing, writhing chakra.

Startled by it, the anger, the fear draining out of her sister's skin in waves, she managed to get all the way to a kneeling position. Panting, she let her cheek fall against the sand, partially from exhaustion and partially to better interpret the murmur she could make out through the sand wall.

"... are you scheming?" a low voice, one she couldn't identify through Gaara's protective barrier, demanded. "Exactly what is this project Tsuko no mei?"

"It'll be a long story. So, I'll need to sit down." said another unfamiliar voice.

"That's enough, just tell us! What kind of plan is it?"

"Kankuro," Fumiko breathed. It was easier to hear through this barrier than most. She didn't know why; maybe Gaara wasn't focused on it, or maybe he was weak. "What..."

In the silence that followed, Fumiko struggled to remember what had happened. They had been with the samurai, and then- and then the order had been given that Sasuke was there. She and Mai had followed them... and then... Sasuke. They had fought with Sasuke and his teeammates. Fumiko blinked hard, casting another look at Mai's unconscious form, her unflickering eyelids.

Was there Sharingan in there?

How was it possible?

"Interesting," Sasuke hummed. "Perhaps you're connected to the bloodline somewhere. Though I can't say it was anything less than stupid to take me on with only two tomoe."

"All shall become one with me," the unknown voice spoke again. "In a complete possession form that unites all."

"What do you mean, become one and unite all of us?" Fumiko recognized this voice, only vaguely, through her tired, painful haze. "What does that even mean?"

"There's an ancient stone tablet passed down within the Uchiha clan. It's in a ruin beneath Konohagakure. Upon it are written secrets engraved by the Sage of the Six Paths himself. They cannot be read without visual powers. With the sharingan, Mangekyo Sharingan, and Rinnegan respectively, more and more knowledge is progressively revealed."

"And you're story's becoming more and more unbelievable," that recognizable voice snapped. "The Sage of the Six Paths is a myth!"

"It is the truth." the voice was smooth. Fumiko had to strain to hear it as it went low, quiet. Where were they? Where was she? Who was that? "He did indeed exist. And he left that stone tablet behind."

"Don't change the subject!" There was a rumble, one that Fumiko could feel under her knees in the ground and vibrating in the sand. "What exactly does this Sage of Six Paths have to do with your plan, anyway?"

"Do any of you know why he became a legendary figure?" the unknown voice inquired. "One who is revered as though a God among shinobi? This is where the link between that man and my purposes lies."

"Uchiha Madara, you possess the Mangekyo Sharingan," said a new voice she hadn't heard before, lilting and female. "And your fellow Akatsuki member possessed the Rinnegan. Do you know all the tablet's secrets, then?"

Fumiko bit her lip, hard, with surprise.

Uchiha Madara?

"Then lets hear them!"

The Tsuchikage. That's the voice she sort of almost recognized. The Tsuchikage, whom she'd met so briefly before. Fumiko slowly was aware of that in the way that someone became slowly aware of the morning. She felt horrible. She needed to throw up. She had nothing left to even check on her twins.

"The Sage once saved the world," said the deep, still completely unknown voice conversationally. "From a certain monster."

"What monster?"

Fumiko's heart jumped into her throat, and she pushed even harder in the sand. Gaara. "I'm awake," she murmured, reaching up to touch the sand with her hand. Despite her best friend's sensory abilities, if he was focused on that new voice, he probably wouldn't feel it. Especially if she had no chakra left to feel. Still, it calmed her.

He's still okay.

"Gaara," that new voice said, tasting his name like some new food he wasn't sure of. "You once held merely one small piece of that monster sealed away within you. It was the aggregate of all the Tailed Beasts; a creature that possessed almost infinite chakra- the Ten Tails."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Fumiko couldn't tell if anyone gasped.

The Ten tails? What was a Ten tails? And what did it have to do with Shukaku? Fumio worried at her lip, glancing back at her still sleeping younger sister. Who was the new voice? An Akatsuki? Someone new? Where was Sasuke?

And then a sharp voice that she instantly recognized brought her ear back to the sand- Temari. "But I thought there were only nine tailed beasts!"

"I just told you. It was the aggregate of all nine of the biju. Sukaku, Gaara's tailed beast known as the Ichibi. The fiery wraith cat; the Hidden Cloud's Yugito Nii- the Two tails. The Fourth Mizukage- the Three tails. Roshi, the lava-stylist- the Four tails. Han of the Hidden Stones- the Five tails. The rogue ninja, Utakata- the Six tails. Fuu of the Hidden Wtaerfalls- the Seven tails. Killer B, the Raikage's younger brother- the Eight tails. And the fox spirit of Konoha... the Kyuubi.

"The Ten tails' chakra was simply divided up to create the Nine tailed beasts that we know today... By the Sage of the Six Paths' hand."

Again with the Sage of Six Paths. Fumiko only knew about him from a few fantasy novels and collections of myths. Supposedly the strongest shinobi ever to live, he'd created the way of Shinobi entirely on his own. But he was just a legend... right? Fumiko wasn't sure, but either way the man had been dead a long, long time, if he was real.

"I really don't like where this is going," Kankuro said, voice almost too low to pick up. "So that's why the Akatsuki were collecting all the Biju?"

"The Sage of the Six Paths developed a certain ninjutsu; in order to protect the world from the Ten-tails. That ninjutsu is still being secretly passed down. It is the Sealing Jutsu for the process for Jinchuuriki. Yes, the Sage was the Ten tail's jinchuuriki- he sealed the Ten tails within himself, to suppress the monster. The Sage who saved humanity from being terrorized by the beast was revered as a savior, and as a Kami.

"But the Sage feared that upon his death, the seal would come undone, and the Ten tail's immense chakra would reemerge. So in his final moments, he summoned the last of his strength to partition the Ten tail's chakra into nine pieces, and scatter them all across the world. Then he sealed away the body of the monster, now devoid of chakra, and hurled it up into the sky-... It became the moon."

The moon? The moon, the husk of a massive biju's empty body? Fumiko shivered. If this guy was telling the truth, whoever he was, then she agreed with Kankuro- she didn't really like where this entire thing was starting to spiral.

"This tale is ridiculous," nother stranger announced. "I mean, what human being could do something like that?"

"As the Ten tail's jinchuuriki, the Sage had already advanced beyond the realm of humanity," the storyteller said almost flippantly.

"So you're trying to reassemble those nine separated chakras, and in other words, all of the nine tailed beasts, and obtain that immense power?" Mifune demanded. "... I can understand that part of your plan. But- what are you planning on doing with all of that power?"

"Revive the Ten tails, of course. And become the Ten tails jinchuuriki. I will then use it's tremendous chakra to strengthen my visual prowess and launch a certain jutsu."

"What 'certain jutsu'?" Ohnoki growled dangerously. "Which one do you mean? Just what are you plotting?"

"A super-genjutsu, where I project my eye off the moon's surface- an Infinite Tsukoyomi. All humans living on this Earth would be placed under my genjutsu. And as a result, by controlling every single one of them.. I shall unify the entire world."

Blood trickled out onto her tongue. Fumiko choked on the gasp that tried to escape her throat, rubbing her stomach furiously as her twins kicked. Put a genjutsu over the entire world? Was that even possible? Why? Why would anyone even- even do something like that?

"I will create a world without hatred or war. Everything will become one with me. Everything will be united." The stranger's voice went soft on the last part of his declaration, almost reverent in nature. "That... is project Tsuki no Mei."

"You're insane!" the Raikage exploded. Fumiko winced. "I'm not just handing the world over to you!"

"That kind of peace is just an illusion," Gaara said with a vehement certainty, stern. She could imagine the taut anger in his eyes, darkening the light hues of teal blue with shadow. "Peace is only meaningful when it's achieved honestly."

"So what exists inside such a genjutsu world?" theunfamiliar female voice demanded. "There's no hopes, no dreams? It's just an escape!"

"You want to unite the whole world, huh?" Ohnoki snapped. "Interesting that Danzo mentioned something similar. But it sounds to me that instead of wanting to unite the world, you actually want to make the world yours and only yours!"

Fumiko's eyes widened as they storyteller laughed. Danzo? What had Danzo said? Sasuke had been after the Leaf's new temporary Hokage. Actually, thinking about it, she hadn't heard him yet. Not that she really knew what he sounded like, but the Kage's didn't sound like they really liked him, so they probably would have said something had he tried to speak. So where was Danzo?

"And yet, with all your talk," the storyteller said with some amusement, "What have you five Kage accomplished? You of all people should know the truth by now... There is no hope. To hope is equivalent to giving up. And it's the biggest deception of all. Now... turn over the remaining Eight and Nine tails, and cooperate with my plan... Or this is war."

Gaara, say something, she thought wildly, heart galloping through her chest. This storyteller was no good man. War? He was insane! War- with what? With them? With Akatsuki? Gaara, say something, please.

"War, you say?" Gaara's voice was dangerous, and low, and angry. He was seething with disbelief, chilly and cold. Fumiko could feel his chakra in the dome of sand around her and Mai, could feel it in the air she breathed. It was comforting, his voice, his anger, his words. He wouldn't allow a war.

"Eight tails?" the Raikage demanded. "What do you mean? You captured B!"

"The Eight tails capture failed." the storyteller said lightly. "He escaped. Now, there's a shinobi who's a perfect jinchuuriki. There's no one quite like your younger brother."

The Raikage's reply for a moment was just a grunt, a loud expulsion of air that she could hear even through the barrier and the sand hsshing against her ear.

"Oh." said the one from earlier who'd discredited the storyteller's tale. "So it's true. I had a feeling he escaped."

"That giant fool!" the Raikage's voice was loud enough to make her ears ring. "He used this to run off and play hookie? Unforgiveable! He's gonna get my iron claw for this!"

"I won't give up Uzumaki Naruto," Gaara said in a loud voice, as close to heated as Gaara ever got.

"And neither will I!" the female voice seconded.

"What about you, Raikage?" the Tsuchikage asked.

"I'll never hand over my brother!"

"I may not have any strength, but I do have the powers of the seven Biju collected," the storyteller reminded them. "You have no chance at winning."

Gaara's voice, as clear and firm as Suna's heat: "We won't abandon them."

"Very well." The words themselves were almost like a shrug. The next words out of his mouth, however, froze her blood, squeezed her throat shut until she could barely breath, and it was like she was having the life choked out of her all over again.

"I hereby declare war on you all. The Fourth Great Ninja War begins now!"

...

~ When she finally went home that night, she pulled out her sketchbook and charcoal, curled up with Gaara on his bed in the Naras' guest wing, and set to work. ~

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep
> 
> I did the thing


	17. Scars

...

~ Her footsteps echoed against the stone masonry, scratching and skidding across the hallway floor, despite her attempts at silence.~ 

...

There was a low, bone-deep groan behind her. Mai whirled to meet Kankuro's eyes, and he opened his mouth like he would say something, but only spat blood instead.

But it pulsed in her head anyway: Save me.

And then it was everywhere- Save me! Save me! Save us!

...

~ Mai's teammates-in-training had long since disappeared from behind her in this darkness. Their scuffling footsteps had ceased. ~

...

Mai wouldn't wake up.

Gaara had long since opened their dome, white-faced and anxious, weary-relieved smile blooming on his face upon realizing that Fumiko was awake; exhausted and haggard looking like she would pass out at any second, but okay.

But Mai, for the rest of the time they spent arguing with the Kage, watching them argue with each other, sharing stories, going back to the hotel- Fumiko had hoped against hope that the next morning her sister would wake at first light complaining about whatever jutsu Sasuke had used on her.

Fumiko hadn't told anyone except Gaara about Sasuke's comment: I can't say it was anything less than stupid to take me on with only two tomoe. 

Tomoe. The small, comma-like marks that defined the sharingan, the pupil split into one, two, three parts, each allotted a part: the instantaneous second-by=second prefracture of space based on movement (predicting what will happen next in a fight to a near-psychic level) coloured and catalogued chakra sight (similar to Byakugan if not more complex) and the third and final addition, which, to the best of research's ability, was known to both enhance the various other main and sub-skills of the sharingan itself and add one final ability: Izanagi and Izanami.

Fumiko hadn't managed to see her sister's face or eyes since Sasuke had thrown her, screaming, into a wall, so there was no way of telling for sure, but...

Gaara's face had gone even paler when she'd told him, blue eyes widening and then narrowing into slits, and hips lips had pursed until they turned white. He was sullen for the rest of the night, jittery and brooding, until Fumiko had come crying to find comfort because her sister wouldn't wake up.

And then she'd realized that Gaara was trembling, shaking like a leaf in fall, unstable and uncertain and upset, and they'd just held each other and Gaara muttered It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

But Fumiko didn't really care if Mai had unlocked something like that. Really, it was surprising a sharingan user hadn't shown up in another village yet- the Uchihas had once been a huge clan. She wouldn't be surprised if the bloodlines slipped out of Konoha and into another.

She wondered, though. Did that mean that she herself had Uchiha blood? The sharingan capability? It was wholly possible, although it was just as possible that the relation was thin and strained away and that Mai had just managed to access it because she was Mai. Bloodline traits ran stronger in some than others of any given clan, and skills were known to skip a chosen few.

Such as, how Temari and Kankuro hadn't inherited the Fourth Kazekage's Magnet Release.

But this was all speculation, and it was way at the back of her mind. Mai wouldn't wake up, and her chakra was a stressed, jumbled mess of life-and death flailing, desperate instinct. Her face was deceptively peaceful, and she didn't ever make a sound; never twitched or moved aside from breath, as still as a comatose patient.

Fumiko had studied the Sharingan at length, along with the Byakugan and the Rinnegan and other key jutsu from each village, merely because she was bored and knew where Gaara kept his tactical and text books, along with combined information from the bingo books.

From the blood Fumiko had seen on Sasuke's face, she could only guess that he'd been using Mangekyo Sharingan's Tsukoyomi. An infinite tsukoyomi, Madara had said. He wanted to put the world under a massive, all-consuming genjutsu.

Mai was trapped in her eternal worst nightmare, and they couldn't get her out.

Uzumaki Naruto had told her stories about Sasuke, his best friend, about Team Seven all together really, and his journeys with Jiraiya the Toad Sage. So Fumiko knew about the Tsukoyomi's effects as they had been used on Sasuke. So far as Uzumaki Naruto knew, Tsunade was the only medic capable of healing the extensive damage to the mind.

And Tsunade was in a coma. She couldn't wake up, either.

Sakura had been her first thought. Sakura could do all the things Tsunade could do, she could heal impossible poisons beyond the capabilities of one raised in the art of poison-making, she could summon Katsuyu of the Slugs, her knowledge of any subject medical was extensive nearly beyond human comprehension, beyond quoting textbooks into drafting her own.

The plan had been to come to the Summit for a week, average. They would extend if they needed to, but planned that if it ended early, they would stay. A vacation, almost, Gaara had said, and Fumiko had heartily accepted that, imagining free days alone to be lazy, or to build forts, maybe to train with each other, something they hadn't yet tried, or had the time to try.

They were going home.

The next morning it was like a silent agreement, Fumiko heading to the kitchen not to make breakfast, but to pick up the sets of ration scrolls Mifune had set out for those Kage who decided to leave since the Summit was technically over anyway, and packing up the few things she'd unpacked to begin with, dirty sleep clothes, toiletries, her sketchbook.

Gaara had packed again as well, done by the time she returned with the scrolls, as had the other four of their party. Eishi and Shiragiku had finished packing before she'd even woken up, because neither of them had ever even falling asleep, standing guard over Mai's bed.

The Raikage was, by unanimous Kage vote, the new leader of the Alliance Gaara had told her about in the plain, complete darkness of their windowless, unfamiliar room with one bed and dressers and a single-sink bathroom with a stand-up shower she hadn't used anyway. But he was still, along with the others, planning to further develop inner factions, breaking the Alliance into pieces.

And she would help him with that. Soon. Eventually. After they got back to Sunagakure and contacted Sakura at Konoha and she fixed Mai's mind and woke her up again. It was scary changing ferocious sister into pyjamas and tucking her into bed like a doll, arms at her sides, the blanket pulled up and folded about her arms, head resting on a pillow.

She wasn't even in REM sleep, eyelids perfectly still; which was terrifying in it's own right- it wasn't even a prolonged natural nightmare. This Tsukoyomi was a freak of nature. Mai wasn't even in a coma. She wasn't even sleeping. That was just a formality term. She was trapped in her own head.

Without much ado, they left, and Fumiko was too subdued to try and introduce herself to the other Kage for real.

...

~ The heady hssshh of the water towers far above her head, usually calming, set her nerves on edge, every muscle coiled and tensed like they would snap; fine twine under pressure. ~

...

The snow made it impossible for Gaara to carry her through the Land of Iron, and so it ended up that Kankuro carried her on his back, holding her thighs. He didn't really complain. It wasn't like she was any heavier than Crow or Ant or Salamander, or even heavier than their Sealing scrolls.

They'd draped extra clothes over her and fastened them with razor wire, careful to hide the points in the folds of fabric, to keep the snow off her.

Fumiko was an anxious wreck, more green than blue now that she'd acquired an actual cloak and long socks from the samurai, crunching through the snow between himself and Gaara, sometimes quiet and sometimes launching into a nerve-wracking Are we almost to the boats? How much longer? Are you sure we can't get there faster? Is she cold? Is she getting heavier? Has she moved at all yet? Are you sure?

He'd been told that that Uchiha Sasuke guy had used some kind of sharingan trick to screw up her mind. The way it was explained to him, she was living her worst nightmare over and over again, without pause, without rest, without conception of the amount of time passed.

Despite the anger that surfaced there- sick bastard, there was no point if what Fumiko had said was true- he was just glad that it had been Mai, and not Fumiko, that had been put under. It wasn't that it would have made him any less angry if it was one or the other, but in different ways, Mai was stronger.

Not to mention having to deal with Gaara's reaction would have been much, much different.

Kankuro shook away that kind of thought, shifting his grip on the smaller girl to keep her from slipping. There was irony in this, he thought ruefully. If she were to wake up, the first thing she would do was gripe and whine and quite possibly severely injure him. Helpless, not helpless. But he almost wished she would do exactly that, spring away from him and rip off the extra coverings.

But she didn't move, cold to the touch and limp, like he was carrying a piece of plastic toy.

It was also concerning that she was so much dead weight, in this kind of cold. The occasional rest was one thing, but not constant inactivity. It was like falling asleep in a blizzard.

So they didn't stop for rest at all, yet they couldn't shunshin because Fumiko was pregnant and that was dangerous. It was frustrating. And they couldn't even send a message to Konoha ahead of them from the Land of Iron because of all the damn snow.

He missed the desert. It was so much simpler there.

...

~ Finally she stopped- the chakra was gone, the noises were gone, she wasn't being followed; she'd escaped. Mai ducked into a shadowed corner, not daring to escape into one of the many rooms lest she be trapped. ~

...

Mai howled and went for him, charging like a bull with her swords raised, but then he was behind her faster than eyes could follow, and her swords clattered across the floor. In a split second, he grabbed both her wrists and planted his foot against her back. She slammed painfully to the ground with a sickening wet popping sound as both her shoulders dislocated.

She screamed.

...

~ She leaned up against the wall, hand still clutching at her abdomen, where her crazy instructor's crazy 'assistant' had slashed her while she spun away, and now blood leaked through her fingers, making her dizzy. ~

...

Surprisingly, it wasn't Gaara, it wasn't Temari, or even Kankuro that sensed Naruto's chakra.

It was Fumiko.

And so they skidded to a halt, at least for a moment, turning to the snow-drifted inn she pointed to, Mai still hefted on Kankuro's back. The snowstorm from the night before had lessened, and now it was a gentle rain of the soft flakes, still dangerous to their charge's prone body.

"You sense Naruto's chakra?" Kankuro said with surprise. Mai 'slept' on, cheek pressed against the back of his shoulder. "Anyone else? Is Sakura there?"

Fumiko shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I just know that he's there. We need to talk to him. He has to know what happened, Gaara," she insisted, turning to face him. "This entire everything is about him and B. And we really need to see if Sakura's there and if she can-"

"We ran out of supplies, anyway," Temari interjected. "We'll get something from the inn after we talk to Naruto. If Sakura's here and can help we can stay the night."

He nodded. Kankuro blew out a breath. "Let's go, then. I've been carrying her all day."

Gaara helped Fumiko with the jumps, picking her up when they cleared the inn's wall, zagged across three different rooftops and finally stopping on mostly solid, snowy ground in front of the Konoha-nin, landing neatly in the powder. The shinobi all looked tired, all in their own rights.

They blinked, Kakashi of the Sharingan, Sai, and Yamato, a man Gaara had just recently met the last time he was in Konoha. Naruto himself looked raggedy, with circles under his eyes and his face in his hand for a moment only before he sensed them and looked up.

Temari was the first to break the silence. "We have very important news, and everyone needs to listen carefully. We're going to tell you what happened at the five Kage Summit."

...

~ It ran from her chest all the way to her navel, and it was deep, but there was no time to stop and learn how to use the medical kit she'd been given. ~

...

"I see," Yamato sighed when finally they were finished, arms tightly crossed. "I can't believe the Summit got so chaotic. But I guess with Danzo..."

Kakashi looked off into the snowy air. "I'm not really all that eager to become Hokage," he said with a different kind of sigh, lazy and indignant. He shrugged before looking back at them. "And even with the circumstances being what they are, I'll still need to go back to Konoha and discuss this with the others first."

Temari's face turned steely. "Madara announced that he was going to declare war on us all. We don't have all the time in the world here!"

Fumiko had moved to sit down on the inn's porch a while ago, at the part where Madara appeared in the first place; springs in her prosthetic squealing despite their wet condition. situated to Uzumaki Naruto's right, just behind Sai. They all wore white cloaks striped red at the hems, like her own.

"I don't think it'll take long toy get everybody's approval," Yamato cut in. His eyes cut to Kakashi as he spoke, and the other man sagged, eyes going to the sky with a desolated, exasperated gaze. "So lets have them proceed as if you've been confirmed as Hokage, Kakashi. It'd be worse if the Akatsuki or Madara striked first, and we're put on the defensive because we're slow to respond."

Kakashi finally let his eyes slide back. "Well. I guess you're right. Thanks."

There was another long, awkward silence.

Yamato was finally the one to break it, taking in a long breath. "... And then there's Sasuke," he breathed almost softly. He sighed again, breath a billowing white cloud in he cold. When he spoke again his voice was even quieter from disbelief. "I can't believe he'd go so far as to attack the Summit."

"Naruto," Gaara said clearly. "I will have you know that this is also a battle to protect the Eight and Nine-tails; namely you. So for the sake of the shinobi world... as Kazekage I will make sure to protect you at all costs. And if as an Akatsuki subordinate Sasuke were to stand against our Allied Shinobi Forces..." Here his eyes narrowed. "I will not show mercy."

Now everyone's eyes turned to Uzumaki Naruto, even her own. He looked for all the world like a dying man, and when he met her eyes in turn, his own grew even sadder. In the silence that followed, Kankuro stepped forward and gently slipped Mai off his back to place her sitting on the porch, still wrapped in clothing. This caught Uzumaki Naruto's attention, and his lips pursed. But then Gaara's voice drew his eyes once more.

"I'm afraid that Sasuke doesn't see you anymore," he said quietly, teal eyes searching. "The only thing he sees now is darkness. Naruto," he continued, ignoring Uzumaki Naruto's startled, almost hurt look. "You once told me that you would become Hokage one day. Well, I've become Kazekage."

Fumiko took Mai from Kankuro's hold, letting her sister lie against her arm. She reached out a hand and touched her cold skin. Kankuro, as Gaara took a few light steps forward, tracking deep footprints as he did, took his place once more near Temari, keeping the Sand Siblings' famous triangle.

Gaara put a hand on Uzumaki Naruto's shoulder.

"... And if you've truly resolved to become a Kage, then you're going to have to do what needs to be done, as Sasuke's friend."

Uzumaki Naruto's head dropped, lips thinning and then trembling.

"It's not fair," Fumiko murmured, so quietly that she doubted Uzumaki Naruto had heard it at all. But Temari caught it, casting her a fleeting glance before fixing her eyes once more on her younger brother, Fumiko bit her lip.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that Uzumai Naruto had to pick between his dream and his former best friend. It wasn't. Why couldn't Uzumaki Naruto just have peace for once, just have peace without someone trying to destroy his friends, or his home, or his body, now even his world? Why couldn't he achieve the only thing he'd ever really wanted and still have his best friend?

After a tense second, Uzumaki Naruto brought his arm up, slowly, and nudged away Gaara's hand. Gaara's eyes softened in surprise and the kind of gentle pleading they took on whenever he tried to protect someone. The Konoha nin said nothing, not lowering his hand or raising his eyes or moving. Gaara let his hand fall.

After a few more seconds, Temari spoke again. "We've said everything we came here to say. So let's go, Gaara." Gaara looked back, and, avoiding his eyes, Temari's own head turned in the same direction, looking back out towards the snowy inn walls. "We're going to head back home to our village now," she said. "Hatake Kakashi, the Sand will procede as if you will be confirmed as the Hokage. As an ally, we ask that there be no confusion in communications."

As he closed his eyes for a brief moment, Fumiko stood, supporting Mai for only a second before Kankuro was there again, lifting her sister away.

"Understood," the silver-haired ninja said at last.

Fumiko nodded at Sai when she stepped beside him. As she passed by Uzumaki Naruto, she paused, an inch from him and an inch from Gaara. She could feel the sadness radiating off of him in the same way she could feel the terror coming off of Mai- his chakra just drooped. "Uzumaki Naruto," she said. "Is Sakura here?"

This seemed to strike a nerve, and he flinched, but said nothing, merely shaking his head.

"Oh," she said for lack of anything better. "Well... goodbye then, Uzumaki Naruto."

She walked beside Gaara, who turned to face in the same direction. Kankuro followed with Mai already situated against him, and Temari started moving as soon as they did. Nobody spoke at their backs, not a word of goodbye or even greeting to begin with. There was only the crunching sound of snow underneath their feet, and Fumiko held Gaara's arm for when they jumped.

But then Gaara paused, and so did she. His eyes moved skywards for a breath, and then they closed.

"I consider you a friend," he said at last. There was an electric reaction from Uzumaki Naruto, who, as she looked back, stiffened and let his eyes fly to the back of his red head. "In the past, 'friend' was often just a word to me. Nothing more. Nothing less. Few really meant anything by the term. But after meeting you, I realized something. What's important is the meaning of that word, to yourself. What does it mean... to you?"

He looked back as well, taking Uzumaki Naruto's stunned expression. "You must decide for yourself what you can do for Sasuke," he said gently, arm curling about Fumiko's shoulder in a way that she new meant movement. "Think hard on that. Let's go."

Snow flurried around then as shunshin pulled them forward.

...

~ Rest would come later, either when they called time or when she was caught out. ~

...

Blood. 

Blood showers and puddles and stained teeth and stained hands as they were torn to pieces, ripped apart, because the murder weapon pinned her to the ground. He gouged out their eyes and ripped out nails and tongues, breaking fingers and bones and peeling skin like wrappers, plunging his greedy fingers into their stomachs and chests and coming out with slimy purple liverish baubles of fleshy intestine and organs.

...

~ But, fucking hell, it burned, burned like she'd touched a boiling pot with her everything and jabbed her skin with a glowing poker just for shits and giggles. ~

...

The boat ride back seemed much less fun than it had the first time.

The waves kicked and bucked, stormy by day and peaceful by night. The deceptive calm of darkness and the gentle waters set everyone's nerves on fire, the storm locking them indoors with their thoughts and Mai, who had now gone nearly four days without eating.

Gaara was trying to make her drink the distance without drowning her- it was like Mai had no reflexes. She didn't swallow, didn't twitch, only lolled and breathed, breathed like everything was alright and lolled like she was dead. Her pillow was soaked with false attempts, and it wasn't just water- it was water, and sticky soda, and fruit juices, pooled around her head every time like some murkish holy light.

Temari watched, quiet, as Fumiko petted her sister's hair, murmuring things in a shivery voice, propping her sister's head up on her knees.

She wasn't surprised the younger shinobi had ended up like this.

Uchiha Sasuke was more than a traitor, a liar and a thief. All shinobi fit those accusations. Nor was he merely cruel, or twisted. No, Uchiha Sasuke was hateful, he was schadenfreude, smart and cool-headed and perfectly aware of the lives he was ripping apart, the pain he was causing- by his own design, his own orders, his own logic, and he knew his path was wrong.

Temari wasn't surprised that Mai was trapped in an eternal nightmare. She was a little surprised that both sisters weren't trapped, but then she didn't know all that much about the sharingan itself, perhaps it was like Danzo's dojutsu- only a limited supply per day. If so, Fumiko had gotten lucky.

Temari might not have been as close to Fumiko as Gaara or Mai or even Kankuro, but she knew enough to be sure that it was better this way than the other. For all rights and purposes, Mai was a shinobi, and a shinobi was one who endured. Not to mention, Mai was Mai, and if she had to she would simply kill Sasuke somehow herself to make any nightmares go away.

But Fumiko was not a shinobi. That was one thing the eldest Sand Sibling had never understood- Fumiko was not a shinobi. She was about as far from a shinobi as one could get. Civilians were more prone to violence than she. Yet she had the skills. The mind. But not the heart, nor the soul. That was why Temari had always, from a distance, wondered why she'd always followed Gaara around in his Dark Days like a loyal puppy.

At first she'd thought maybe he hid it from her, all the violence.

But Fumiko had probably seen more than most her senior could admit to.

Still, for all her strange optimistic strength, of whatever nightmare she would have endured had anything to do with Gaara- which it probably most definitely would have- she would have almost definitely come out of it distant and skittish and terrified and numb, the way she had been before when Gaara disappeared, throwing things and screaming randomly and refusing food and standing in the cold below-freezing weather without more than a sleeveless thin turtleneck to shock herself awake.

It was better this way, she told herself, looking at Mai's blank-slate expression, more unnerving than even Gaara's stare open-eyed stare. This one can handle this.

If they couldn't wake her, she would continue to bask in her coma, kept alive by any sort of medical prowess Suna prided itself on, any expense Gaara could afford, mind slowly wasting away, icing over, dissipating. The strain of terror would kill her long before her body gave out.

She wondered, then, if Mai would be quite the same person she had been, if and when Sakura or Tsunade or whoever the hell managed to bring her back. She supposed that it depended on the nightmare.

The shinobi of their party tried to stay belowdecks to monitor Mai's health, aided by the storms, because from what Temari had learned studying psychology in interrogation for her Jonin Exams she knew that it was, actually, possible to die from too much stress and fear, it was possible to flood your system with too much literal adrenaline and blow up your heart.

Luckily, Mai didn't seem to be having any kind of physical reactions, but they watched anyway, just to be on the safe side.

...

~ Mai panted, breathing heavy even as she tried to mask it, utilizing breath exercises- deep in, shallow out, deep in, shallow out; get more air per breath and shut up while you're doing it. ~

...

Gaara was relieved when they finally made it back to the desert, past the marshes and the forests and the prairies at last, the sound of crunching leaves underfoot fading, the spotty sunlight strengthening, the cold disappearing at daylight; the ground no longer pulled at their feet or spat out unexpected danger.

Their speed increased in spades; Gaara could carry both Mitsuwa sisters in protective half-cocoons of sand and they could run, run like the sand in a wind ran, run like his heart that had been trying to bolt out of his chest, run like a bunch of people who needed to get home, which was exactly what they were.

It had only taken two days to hit the trees from Suna, another to reach the marshes.

If they walked at a normal pace, the rest of the way back would have taken two full days, cresting perhaps on the third's rising sun.

At their speed, it took them nine hours.

They split up at the Gate, Temari and Kankuro going to the hospital with Mai, Eishi and Shiragiku going to mission hall to serve the dual purpose of finding their sensei and explaining why the party had returned so quickly without mission report drafts, and Gaara and Fumiko to the Tower's upper levels- Fumiko to send out frantic letters to Leaf, and Gaara to deal with his advisers.

...

~ Shadows were her friend, but it wouldn't be long before someone found her. She took another heaving breath; tried to focus on the thrumming energy that she was learning by trial and error was chakra. ~

...

Mai clenched her eyes shut, blood and tears melting down her cheeks. And then she was standing, and there were bodies, and she could see her friends in the distance. Somebody screamed.

...

~ Shit. ~

...

It took exactly four days to get a message back.

Heart thundering in her chest, Fumiko pushed up the aviary window herself to let Asuka in, much to the displeasure of the handlers, who honestly were just as bad as Gaara in that she was in no condition to be doing anything.

The bird squawked, screeched, and finally settled down enough to let her untie the little scroll from her leg. As the bird hopped about on the sill, waiting for someone to unhook it's scroll pouch, she tore it open without picking the seal away, ripping the paper around the chakra fueled wax.

Fumiko, we're on our way.

\- Haruno Sakura

The message was simple, straightforward, and clear, yet it was glaringly vague. Who was coming? Sakura? Uzumaki Naruto? It wasn't even an official scroll from Konoha, it was from Sakura personally.

Help was coming.

That single wayward thought shocked her out of her stupor and she stumbled backwards to the door, tripping over a misplaced runner's mail bag. Fumiko opened her mouth to screech, but before she could even suck in a breath one of the Mail keepers caught her.

"Fumiko-san, are you-" he started, concerned, but as soon as she caught her footing, ignoring Asuka's indignant cries at being ignored, she marched to the door yelling "Thank you!"

Her mind spun as she descended the stairs.

Four days, two to get there, two to get back. Three days to Konoha, and if they left with the urgency the simple message conveyed, then-

They would be here tomorrow.

Fumiko's body twinged as she hobbled down the stairs, noting that her chest hurt, and her ankles, and her back a little bit she would have to dig out Tenten's body pillow from the almost-but-not-quite nursery room, but she ignored it.

Gaara was just as worried sick as she was, and for that, she was immensely grateful. Gaara hated the Uchiha for what they had caused, what they had planned to do, what their kin had eventually done, hurting Uzumaki Naruto, hurting everyone. But it didn't seem like it bothered him, now, that she had Uchiha blood, that Mai had Uchiha blood.

Even before she opened the door, she could sense the frazzled state of Gaara's chakra.

This sensory thing was starting to get intense. She hadn't even been working on it at all, but as long as she was paying attention, sometimes even purposely masked chakra couldn't sneak up behind her, especially if it was someone she knew well like Mai; and her family; and the Sand Siblings. Her color-sight let her read basic emotions. Baki had told her that eventually, she might be able to sense affinities.

Not that she was even close to the level of some sensor-nin. Mai was better at it, had honed it. Gaara was, too.

But they couldn't read emotions, or see colors. She wondered briefly as she opened the door to Gaara's office if her twins would have the same affinity... Hopefully not, as likely the only reason she had that affinity was due to her birth defect. But still, unlike most children, hers were being constantly exposed to altered, unfiltered chakra.

So, maybe.

Gaara flinched, head whipping up, tense lines in his face barely dissipating as he recognized her face.

"Long-range," he muttered, then looked back down. His hat was askew, printed green kanji tilted dangerously to the left.

"I think Sakura's coming," she said loudly.

Gaara flinched again. "What?"

"Catch," she said from the doorway, tossing the scroll out into the middle of the room, a few feet short of the desk. Sand cast into the carpet jumped, spinning into a grabby grip that zipped against Gaara's desk to his fingers.

He scanned it, and then let out a sigh, big enough that the corner of the paper on his desk ruffled up a little. "Sakura," he muttered. "Do you think Naruto is coming as well?"

Fumiko shrugged helplessly, leaning up against the frame of the door.

"Let's hope, then."

"Yeah." Fumiko smiled, lower lip caught between her teeth. "Let's hope."

...

~ There was one in in the hallway behind her. Damn it, they could probably hear her stupid heartbeat, they were like freaking sharks. ~

...

Fumiko sent a runner down to the Gates the day Sakura was supposed to come, both to let the entryway chuunin there know to let the Konoha nin in, and to act as a guide to the hospital once they arrived.

Not that they wouldn't know where the hospital was. Sakura had been here before, after all, as had most of the rest of her Konoha friends, or at least they knew where it was. She herself remained by her sister's bed, healing with green light the bed sores that manifested here and there on her arms and legs.

It looked strange, Mai with a flimsy green hospital gown, but they couldn't heal the sores that sprung up here and there with her long leather pants.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She breathed softly, aided by a clear mask that fogged with every exhale. They didn't know if it was necessary or not; there were no medical records in any of Sunagakure's history that spoke of or recommended anything about Tsukoyomi or even Sharingan-induced mental damage of any kind in any of it's records or medical histories.

Bed sores were a nasty business, bruised around the edges, skin eaten away in dime and quarter-sized circles, pussy and green underneath. The one Fumiko was healing was just above her right elbow at the bottom of her bicep, small since she'd caught it early on.

Warmth seeped across her skin, pushed about as it exited. As she watched, the sore healed, sealing together in layers, starting from the damaged muscles and ending at the skin, the tiny filaments of dead skin cells flaking off to leave behind fresh skin, a slightly different shade than the rest.

Gaar was working in his office, communicating with other Kage on the Summit. Currently, there was a problem among them as they waited for the Daimyos of their respective countries to reply- Danzo was no longer Hokage, booted from the spot by a combination of what had occurred at the Summit and the fact that Tsunade of the Leaf had woken from her coma.

Still, it meant that Gaara was busy. He couldn't find much time to be here at the hospital- and anyway couldn't stand to, not when there was nothing he could do at all to help remedy the situation besides worry and fall behind with his work. So often, for the past three days, it was just Fumiko, or Fumiko and Mai's teammates and sensei, or Fumiko and Kankuro or Temari or both...

She couldn't leave her sister, even if it was irrelevant whether she was here or not. Maybe Mai's bed sores got fixed a little faster, but the medic-nin would have taken care of that at every interval. No one knew if she could still feel her physical body, or if she was aware of the fact that Tsukoyomi was a jutsu, or even if she was still under the Tsukoyomi at all- although they guessed she was, sensing the erratic pulses and spills of chakra.

The sun rose steadily. People filtered in and out- Otokaze, Eishi, Shiragiku, Temari, Kankuro, a few others she didn't recognize that ranged anywhere from Mai's age to Baki's, Baki, Matsuri and by default Sari. All had already brought cards and flowers and snacks, and now all that remained was to talk quietly over her hospital bed, hoping someone would get here soon, that she would wake up early, that she would be okay.

Fumiko happened to be alone when finally, at high noon, when the sun was at it's brightest through the window, Sakura came bursting through the door, runner, Tenten, and Rock Lee at her heels. She didn't see Neji, but at that moment, she didn't think about that, jumping up and dropping the rag she'd been using to keep her sister cool.

"Sakura!"

"Alright, let's go," Sakura said without greeting her or asking a single question, gloves on, already pulling her hair back.

"Fumiko!" Lee said from behind her. "We got here as soon as we heard what happened! Naruto and Neji would have come as well, but both were too busy with other things, so we went as once cell-"

"Lee, let Sakura concentrate," Tenten scolded, and the green ninja quieted instantly.

Sakura strode to the bed in three steps, then hovered both hands over Mai's face, one against her forehead, the other just above her eyes, and closed her own. Green light pulsed from her hands in a warm-looking glow, unlike her own that sunk into the patient's skin, bubbling about her hands like Uzumaki Naruto's Rasengan.

Fumiko, stunned, didn't say a word, just let herself numbly fall back into her seat across the bed from where Sakura stood, the side closest to the window, so that she could feel the sunlight burning against her back.

Eventually, in the tense silence, Lee and Tenten moved forward towards her as a means of quiet comfort, both ninja touching her shoulders lightly, looking on anxiously as the pink-haired kunoichi worked, the three of them pale-faced and rigid.

"Ugh," Sakura muttered, tracing her fingers across the air over Mai's face, like she was tying knots or weaving thread in Mai's skin. "Sasuke's chakra is still lingering... I can't believe he would actually do something like this..."

Fumiko sadi nothing, and neither did Tenten, although Lee let out a tight, "Yes, indeed."

Sakura said nothing else, face screwed in unbroken concentration.

Finally, what seemed like- and probably was- an hour later, Sakura sighed, and the light emitting from her fingers died. She stepped back, raising a hand to first wipe at her face and then pull out the hair tie. Her hair fell back about her ears, and she shook it out once before taking another deep breath, looking almost drained.

"She should be fine in a while," she said at last. "Give it another half hour and she should wake up."

Fumiko didn't have to actively try to sense to tell the difference in her younger sister's chakra signature. It had calmed considerably, still roiling but smoother, less raw. Almost imperceptibly, her eyelids twitched, her first descent into REM sleep since her fight at the Kage Summit.

Mai was still having a nightmare, but now it was simply that: a nightmare. A bad dream.

She stood, crossing the half-step of space between Mai's bed and her chair. Hesitantly she reached out to touch her tanned cheek, then sighed with relief. "A half hour?" she murmured quietly. "And then she'll wake up?"

Sakura shrugged, hair tie tucked away. "It's impossible to tell. This is my first time dealing with such severe damage. But I blurred most of the memory, so it shouldn't be much worse than a bad dream when she comes to. So, it shouldn't take much longer than that."

"Did... did Tsunade teach you this?"

She smiled. "Yeah. Or, well, she taught me how to deal with really minor cases- because we don't get many Genjutsu-based mental damage down at the Konoha hospital- but she taught me in theory. She did the same thing for Sasuke, not that long ago."

"Two years," Fumiko said softly.

"Yeah," Sakura said in a tone just as quiet. "Two years."

"Thank goodness." Lee heaved a big sigh. "I was so worried! Fumiko, when I heard about your sister, I immediately came with Sakura to help! Not that I was too much help but..." He sobered slightly. "I wanted to make sure you and Gaara-sama and Mai-chan were alright."

"Thank you, Lee," she said, smile finally breaking across her face. And then, looking at Sakura, "Thank you."

The kunoichi smiled back and nodded.

...

~ Heart pounding, she let her sensor spread- run or stay? But she winced, cringing as the fire of her nerve endings, hands slowly turning slick and dark. ~

...

Fumiko, Kankuro, Gaara, her mother, Temari, Matsuri, Otokaze-sensei, Eishi, Shiragiku, Shikamaru, Lee, Naruto, Kiba, Lizard, Rattlesnake, Baki, and Squirrel-taicho.

They were cast in a strange light- the sky was reddish in color; blurred, swirling, tainting her eyes in red, red like the sharingan they spun, red like the blood on the ground, red like...

Somebody screamed.

...

~ She was leaving a trail, Mai realized. A blood trail. If she ran there was no way she'd be able to staunch the bleeding enough to keep from being followed. ~

...

When Mai finally did wake up, it was violently, and only fifteen minutes had passed. The Konoha ninja were still there, as was Shiragiku and Kankuro, who had heard the news from the runner, whom Fumiko had sent back out with the job of finding those waiting on Mai's recovery.

She screamed, loudly, and sat bolt upright in the bed, shoving the blanket off her chest and accidentally ripping out her IV in the process. There weren't exactly comprehensible words flying out of her mouth, but run-together cobbled curses mixed with half-sentences of confusion and something akin to terror.

Everyone in the room flinched, ninja or not.

And then Tenten grabbed her shoulders when her legs tensed into a crouch, eyes still slammed tightly closed, to keep her from springing away into a wall or at the door or somewhere, if she was even lucid.

"Mai-chan, calm down! It's us! It's just us!" she barked out.

"Get offa me!" Mai shrieked and Tenten doubled over with a gasp.

Mai scrambled back against the headboard, eyes finally shooting open, chest heaving, adrenaline-sweat steaming against her skin.

It took Fumiko about that long to be able to react at all. "Mai!" she cried, and it was like a whoosh of air as she stood to hug her sister, relieved voice leaking out of her throat. "Oh Kami, you woke up! You really woke up!"

Her sister flailed for a second before finally calming down, although she made small sounds of confusion, touching first her arms and then her back for a few awkward moments before finally returning the hug. When Fumiko pulled back, Mai's eyes were sharp and clear as ever.

"What happened?" she asked urgently. "I was- Sasuke, and then- I saw-"

"It was just a nightmare, Mai," she managed through her smile. "Just a really, really bad dream."

"Ugh. A nightmare...?" Mai's body finally started to relax, although she remained tensely aware and ready to bolt. Fumiko could feel her heartbeat thrumming under the thin fabric of her gown. "How did I get here?"

"We carried you back," Kankuro cut in. "Well, I did. Until we got to the desert."

"Kankuro?" Mai shook her head as if to clear it, then finally seemed to notice the others, noticed Tenten still rubbing at the base of her stomach and Lee practically vibrating with energy, and Sakura, still tired-looking and sitting in a chair. Kankuro and Shiragiku had been conversing in low tones by the doorway, but now came forward.

Kankuro arched an eyebrow at her suspicious tone. "What, expecting someone else?"

Mai's face turned dark, then thoughtful. "No, I... it's not important. Shiragiku? Where's Eishi?"

"He's with sensei at the training fields," her teammate answered immediately. "None of us got hurt, at least not badly. You went into a coma for nearly a week and a half because of Uchiha Sasuke's Tsukoyomi."

"Tsukoyomi?" Her eyes narrowed. Fumiko reached back for the chair she'd nearly knocked over in her haste, scooting closer to the headboard side of the bed and sitting. "Was it his sharingan? It got all weird and spinny for a second... what are all of you doing here? We're in Suna, right?"

"I came to heal your mind from the mental trauma," Sakura answered. "Lee and Tenten came along too."

"Heal my-" Mai's teeth showed, sharp and white. "What was wrong with my head? Was I having that dream for- for the entire..."

"You seem kinda freaked out," Tenten muttered. "What in the world were you dreaming about, anyway?"

Mai blinked, once, slowly, and Tenten breathed out a confused grunt when she turned her flecked brown eyes at her. She stared for a few seconds longer than necessary, and eventually Tenten's eyebrows bent, face scrunched with a discomfited unease. "... Mai-chan?"

The young kunoichi looked away, sighing with a big, trembling exhale. "Nothing," she said quietly. "It was nothing. Just a dream."

...

~ She closed her bruised eyes, going through a million half-baked plans at once. Run. Stay. Fight. Escape. Duck into another room, ignore the bleeding and try to outrun them? But she was way to slow. Everyone had been too slow. ~

...

For their troubles Fumiko made a huge dinner of curry rice and fish and chicken, assorted vegetables and various drinks. There were desserts in the fridge, but she doubted by the time Lee was done with the Dinner Party sized pots of curry he was going to explode before he ate any Wagashi. The group of Konoha-nin would leave the following morning, maybe before she even woke up.

Dinner, however, was quiet, chopsticks, spoons and forks clicking against the plates and nothing else.

Mai, after coming to the Tower, had retreated to the guest room she frequented whenever she stayed there overnight. The door was locked and while every shinobi present was fully capable of picking the lock, none wanted to.

The newly-woken girl had gone scarily quiet for the entire walk back, staring off into the shimmery air of the desert winds and rubbing her arms like she was cold. Eishi had brought her down normal clothes, and Gaara was due back any minute now that the other two from Team Otokaze had set off to find him. Not that it would do any good if Mai was still locked in her room when they got back.

There was a wrapped plate of a little bit of everything, but Fumiko knew Mai wouldn't touch it, not while she was upset.

It had been stupid to convince herself that everything would be okay once Mai woke up. Sakura had blurred the dream, but, she had admitted, perhaps not as well as Tsunade might have, nor as thoroughly. Not to mention that being stuck in a nightmare for so long, even if all the images were banished and one was left only with emotions, was bound to cause problems.

Even Gaara had to be alone sometimes after nightmares.

...

~ Her swords were missing. The belt had been cut off entirely. Another- hour, maybe, or two, to this sensing-game? Shit. ~

...

"Weak," Sasuke snorted above her. "You can't even save yourself, let alone them."

"Leave my friends alone!"

A pause.

"No."

Mai groaned and threw a pillow at the wall. It it with a soft, muffled slap before sliding back to the floor. She glowered at it, then groaned again before falling back onto the bed, scrubbing her face with her hands.

"A nightmare," she murmured. "I can't believe it was just..."

It had felt real. It had felt really, really real. It was really almost worse that the details of the dream itself were fuzzy, because all she got were a few blurs of scenes and sounds and the rest was just the feeling of pure, unadulterated terror. There was no face for her monsters.

Except, perhaps, for Sasuke, the dark, slimy residue in the creases of her brain. She could still feel him, like the split second before his eyes changed, like the pain blowing up behind her eyes, like the draining black she'd spiraled into.

"I am in blood, Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er." She murmured, and then let her face screw. Where the hell had that bullshit come from? Gah, she'd been reading too much Seireito.

But the quote was way too fitting. Everything she remembered from that dream was stained in blood, even the words, plagued by a gorey smile full of skin and muscle and- and there was just too much blood for one dream to hold. She'd really thought her two-tomoe sharingan would be enough to dig herself out of genjutsu, Mangekyo or not, not that she'd even known what a Mangekyo Sharingan was before now...

It was her own fault. She'd judged that against Fumiko's Genjutsu, not another sharingan user's, let alone a sharingan user with a higher-level dojutsu than her own.

Crap. How much had Fumiko heard?

The sharingan was the best kept secret Mai had, save for, perhaps, her joining ANBU. But people knew about that and she didn't mind; Fumiko and Gaara and probably Temari, possibly Kankuro. Nobody knew about the heat behind her pupils, the power in her eyes. Just like Sasuke's power, and that weasel Itachi's power, and the power of an entire clan that supposedly had been a bunch of stuck up pricks ill contented with their lot and planning to coup their Hokage.

That so called 'Curse of Hatred' that plagued the Uchihas since the very beginning.

Oh hell. Oh Kami. Shit. Shit. Fumiko had been right there. Of course she knew. And that meant Gaara knew, which meant...

There was a sudden knock at the door, so soft she almost didn't hear it.

"What?" she snapped, and it came out a lot harsher than she'd meant it to.

"Mai-chan?" The voice registered absently; Shiragiku. "Mai-chan, please open the door."

"I don't really want to be social right now. Try again later," she muttered, letting her hands fall away from her eyes to the tan comforter. "And I'm not hungry, they pumped me with enough artificial flavors in that hospital to make me toxic."

"Everyone is worried about you. Gaara asked me to-"

"I'm fine. I just..." She raised her fingers above her head, gesturing for a useless moment before letting them fall back to the bed. Fwump. "I'm tired, okay? I just need, like, a really long nap."

"Mai-chan, I'm sorry, but you weren't trying to sleep."

"Shiragiku," she said, suddenly feeling as tired as she'd just lied about being. "Please just go away. Leave me alone."

There was silence at the other side of the door, and she sighed, turning away from it. The sun had long since set; the day half full of sleeping and half full of a whirlwind of doctor's tests and concussion-esque questions like What's your name? Where do you live? Can you name your family members? Do you know where you are?

And then there was a gentle sound, squeaky little twitches like bells stuck in a tree.

"Shiragiku. What are you doing?" she sighed irritably. "Just go, go eat or something!"

He didn't answer, only kept causing the whatever-the-hell noise he was making. And she snarled once before rolling over to face the door, gripping another pillow and throwing it at the door.

The door fell forward at the exact same moment, and the pillow hit Shiragiku in the chest. He didn't react, standing there like a super-calm ambassador of lands, everything in his demeanor screaming that he didn't want to corner anything. She rolled her eyes, then spotted the little silver glimmers in his fingers, pinned between his knuckles like senbon.

"Did you take the hinges off my door?" she demanded, sitting up. Shiragiku shrugged and let the screws hit the floor. "Gaara-sama gave me permission."

"Of course he did," she muttered. "Okay, you're in. Now what do you want?"

"Honestly?" Shiragiku said, and it didn't reall sound like a question. He knelt, picked something up, and stood, then stepped across the door like a red carpet into the bedroom. "I just wanted to make sure you ate something."

...

~ She needed to patch it up. That was the point. That was the whole stupid point, wasn't it, survival? Survival masked with the task of chakra sensory ability wrapped with stealth. ~

...

Her old studio was almost dusty, definitely steeped with sand dunes here and there, and the light was filtered and unclear when she flicked it on, motes dancing in the space between windows.

Fumiko breathed in, breathed out, and smiled and let the door close.

Seven still unsigned commission receipts still dangled from the corkboard behind her counter. Everything still smelled like turpentine, but the old, familiar mix of chocolate had long since faded, months and months of disuse airing out through the same cracks letting the sand in.

Four of those commissions were still on easels, in various stages of started and almost-finished, the rest waiting to come out on a blank white canvas. It was with an odd sense of nostalgia that she went to the back room for her supplies, dropped them in front of a half-finished mountain and mist top of a flower garden, then grabbed the receipt with detail requests.

Just to see if anyone would come in and make the place lively, familiar to background noise rather than just quiet and the faint, thin voices of the merchants outside, she flipped the sign to opened and flicked on the oven.

The movements were familiar, if not a little more difficult than before with the settled pain in her back and the occasional sharp signals from her stomach and the way she had to pull up a stool to paint and sit while she mixed dough.

Now she was glad she'd invested in an electric fridge rather than just an icebox, and also grateful because Gaara, she realized, hadn't closed the Gallery's account, and she was probably near broke now from all this time paying for electricity with no revenue but it didn't matter because she could still make cookies.

Even if she wasn't going to open the place back up- at least not now, or not for good- she wanted to, and she wanted to snatch and some semblance of peace, and she wanted to clear her head, and also to apologize to those poor seven people she'd left hanging for far too long.

Her art style, she realized, looking at the painting she eventually sat down to work on- the Genin girl's the one who'd wanted a decoration to make her apartment less empty, the one she'd promised she would get it back to in just two weeks. That would make this interesting.

Some of her paints, when she popped them open, had a gross kind of film on them, but she picked those up like a layer of jello and threw it out before mixing up the paint. Pinks, whites, blues, blacks, greens...

...

~ With shaking, slippery wet fingers and her teeth Mai pulled out and threaded a thin needle with thick surgical thread, figured it couldn't hurt nearly as bad as the wound itself, and set to work. ~

...

"Damn it, Mai!" Kankuro groaned, picking up the severed, cracked wooden arm of his Sasori puppet. "So much for a friendly spar."

"You said it would be friendly, not me," Mai pointed out. "I wanted to train alone."

"Yeah, but- hey, are you okay?" Kankuro switched gears suddenly, gaze shifting to her right thigh, which she now realized was burning like flames. "I didn't realize the poison had actually hit you. I have the antidote in my bag."

"I'm fine." But she knew he wasn't going to either attack or defend, so she let the hilts of her Tantos spin around her hands and then slid them into their sheaths. "Been worse."

Kankuro's eyebrows shot to the top of his kitty-hood. "That doesn't mean you should poison yourself."

She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically, then held out a hand. Kankuro grinned and reached into one of his deep, deep pockets. puppet parts settling on the ground until he came out with a shinobi-proof glass vial filled with something gross-looking and yellow. He tossed it, and she snatched it out of the air, unscrewing the cap and making a face at the rank smell.

"Yuck. What is this?"

"If I told you, you wouldn't drink it."

"That's reassuring..." But she did, squeezing her eyes shut as it drained down her throat, bitter and sour and nasty. The burning in her thigh didn't lessen in the slightest, so she assumed it was one of those 'gradual reaction' cures. "Ack. What kinda poison is it, anyway?"

He grinned again, thin and sly. "Gives you rashes and blisters."

"What the hell use is that in a fight?" She tossed the little glass vial to the side. Normally, she would've sat and sprawled out, but right now she kind of just wanted to punch something or maybe burn it or possibly cut it in half. That was why she liked sparring with Kankuro: his puppets could not feel pain and could be fixed, and therefore could be ravaged.

"It isn't really." Kankuro shrugged. "I only spar with it."

"Are you going easy on me?" Mai was surprised to hear the bite in her own voice, letting her fingers drop from her earring to her hilt. "Because I really just want to not go up against an opponent thinking 'Oh, he's weaker than Kankuro, so he should be no problem,' and then realizing I was way off base-"

"Whoa, whoa, truce," he said loudly, putting his hands up with a little laugh that set her nerves on edge. "I just would rather not hit you with near-incurable poison I learned from Sasori-"

Inexplicably his image bloomed with redness, seeping from the center of his chest and the corners of his mouth, smiling teeth stained and glimmering like a vampire, black shirt darkening and darkening into void-

Save me.

Mai wailed and let herself turn and kick a cactus to her left, the arm she'd aimed for splitting with a sound like splintering wood and flipping over the top of the baby Suguaro. Kankuro made a startled noise, choked off with the breath he'd intended to use to finish his sentence.

She rubbed her face with one hand, then let the other join in and grind into her eyes, for a long second not even noticing the numbing pain in her foot, looking like a cactus itself, a blue-and-tan-and-red colored cactus with Suguaro needles. When she looked at him again, spluttering and still startled-looking, he wasn't bleeding.

"What the hell?" he yelled.

"Sorry." Mai kept her voice purposely blank. "I didn't think."

"Didn't- what-" he looked flustered, letting the arm drop and moving to crouch by her bleeding foot. "What just-"

"Can we just keep going?" She crossed her arms, nails biting into her skin. "Can we just- pretend I didn't do that?"

"Pretend you didn't-" he shook his head, still bewildered, fingers hovering uncertainly over the darkening fabric of her sandal, hesitant to touch any of the spikes and also to coddle lest he be kicked in the face, but Mai was too busy blinking red from her eyelids to really care. "No, we can't just- what is wrong with you? We need to get to the hospital. Or find Fumiko, or something."

"It's not that bad." But now she winced, finally pulling up her foot to ease the pressure and the pain, biting her scarred tongue to keep from hissing. "Fine. Okay. Lets go find my sister. And Advil."

...

~ Immediately she gurgled, nearly biting off her tongue in the attempt to shut up, but it was too late. The signature behind her stopped. ~

...

Fumiko hummed, sorting through papers on Gaara's desk, mixtures of sending-out orders for different kinds of weapons, coming-in orders for mineral resources from Suna's mines it hadn't been paid to scavenge in almost a century, letters from advisors and citizens and other Lands' representatives and once or twice, other Kage.

Gaara was beside her, picking at a lunch bento of rice and fruit sliced to look like flowers, sandwich bread with jam, and vegetables. It looked a little strange, but she had made one for herself and knew it tasted good.

"So they're splitting the Great Battle Regiment thing into five big parts?" she asked, eyes skimming over outlines for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Divisions, a few of them subcategorized into smaller groups labeled as a Sealing team and a Communications team. Each of the five regiments would have a captain, and there would be a Regimental Commander of all five.

There were also a few support teams aside from those regiments; the Surprise Attack Division, the Logistical Support and Medical Division, an Intelligence Division and a Sensor Division. Each of those would have a leader as well.

"Yes."

Fumiko nodded, scribbling as neatly as she could while still writing fast. She was copying everything down, going through the many letters of both hypothetical and decided upon groups, compiling it onto a few pieces of paper to scribe and send back out to the Kage for an organized list, with blank spaces for official leaders bracketed with already suggested leaders.

The Great Battle Regiment would be cut into five pieces, each piece specialized. The First Division would be compiled of Mid-Range centered shinobi, the Second Division Short-Range centered, the Third Division Short-to-Mid-Range, the Fourth Division Long-Range, and the Fifth Division would be a Special Battle Division, already decided to be lead by Mifune.

So far every Kage but Gaara had suggested themselves to be Regimental Commander, but a few of the individual divisions' suggestions had consisted largely of Kage's guard from the Summit itself. Gaara had already suggested Kankuro for the Surprise Attack sub-division- and Fumiko agreed with that because the puppeteer was not a melee fighter but he could still fight.

At the moment, she was only halfway through the various letters and scrolls, some from the main Five Elemental Nations, and many, surprisingly, from smaller villages here and there, Waterfall, Grass, the Star village, Moon, Sound, Frost; everyone wanted to help and wanted a piece.

"Raikage's gonna send out instructions to everyone, right, Gaara?" she mumbled around the butt of her brush before continuing, touching the bristles into an inkwell. "Like, how to get into the division of your specialty? To the other villages?"

"I believe so, yes. We need all the manpower we can get."

"Why did they ask us to do all this, again?" While the Raikage was considered the leader-sama of the entire everything, Gaara had been tasked with weeding out useless or bigoted leader and member suggestions and gisting out the best candidates for the Raikage's final say-so.

"I'm not sure, but I'm glad you're doing it."

"Why, because you don't want to?" Fumiko grinned, flipping another letter to the Already Read pile.

"No," Gaara replied with a little smile of his own. "Because you're the only one who's actually going to be unbiased and fair."

"I'm sure there are other- hmm. I'm sure there are others," she finished, holding up a page. "Hey look, one vote from Tsunade that you be Regimental Commander. I agree, you'd be a good one."

"Really?" Gaara's small smile faded with lack of humor, but his posture was relaxed and contented. "Interesting. I don't know if A would agree, however. They all think me too young."

"Pshh." She flicked through another page, eyes scanning the words rapidly. "If anyone can handle it, you can. And you say I'm unbiased."

"If you were a shinobi-"

"Gaara, if I was a shinobi, I probably would've already died unless you went with me for every mission." she pointed out. "Even if my leg wasn't shot, I don't like fighting."

His lips pursed, and then he smiled again. "I suppose."

Another page into the pile. Her eyes slid to the first bullet-note. "Hey, another one! That's it. I'm putting you on the Suggestions list for Regimental Commander."

...

~ Mai stumbled away from it, needle still jaggedly pushing in and out roughly, and this time she didn't bother to hide her grunt. ~

...

"So we're going to war, huh."

"Yeah."

"Well, shit." Mai let her head fall back into the and dunes.

Eishi sighed, long and drawn out and scratchy from the sand he'd been breathing in for who knew how long. It was pure luck that she'd caught him lying in the sand outside the wall while she wandered, trying to walk off the shooting pain from the stitches in her foot. It reminded her of Shikamaru. She didn't really know what possessed her to join him.

She'd almost thought he was asleep when he'd finally opened his eyes and said, "I almost can't believe it."

Eishi had explained everything from after she was knocked flat by Sasuke's Mangekyo Sharingan technique, Tsukoyomi. It wasn't until then that she realized she hadn't asked anyone what happened in the first place, between her stupid moping and her sword training.

"How long's it been since the last Great War, anyway?"

"A half a century, or so."

"Man." She laughed, almost without humor. "Not even fifty years? Damn."

"We need to work on our techniques if we're going to war."

"Yeah."

Eishi laughed too, a startled, hollow sound. "Just remember, Mai. Desert Sage. If I can trust anyone to make sure those prudish bunch of idiots get at least that right, it's you."

She snorted. "Oh, please. Don't be dramatic."

'Seriously, though." His eyes closed again, and he sighed, hands behind his head. His giant folding fan rested at his other side, Mai stretched out beside him on the burning hot sand like a tanning bed. She could feel her skin withering away, but Eishi seemed perfectly at ease.

"I am being serious." This time her laugh was a little more sincere, toes of her good foot curling into the sand. "We won't die. Who're we up against- that loon and a couple of Akatsuki, right? With the Kage and Naruto and everyone from Leaf on our side?"

"I thought you were scared of Akatsuki," he asked curiously, and she stiffened.

"I am not scared of anything, Eishi-chan." She sniffed. "I only know that those guys could kick my ass to high heaven. But they wouldn't stant a chance against Gaara as he stands. You said that guy called himself Madara, right?"

"Yeah." Eishi let a few more superheated seconds pass by like mirage before speaking again. "If that's true-"

"It's bullshit. Has to be." Mai shrugged, feeling the grainy dune dig into her shoulders like therapy soap. "Even if he was immortal, he'd be all sorts of old. And if somehow he kept his youth, he'd have already shown up by now. He has to be just using that name."

"But he had a sharingan."

Yeah, well. She thought dryly. So do I.

"I doubt that means anything." She stretched out her legs, squinting up at the blue sky, the burnt-away wisps of clouds, the white-hot pinprick of the sun. "There's gotta be at least a few bloodlines thinned out here and there."

"Maybe." He grinned; let his cheek fall to the sand to look at her. "You know, you make everything sound so simple."

Nothing was, really. "That's because it is," she replied.

"You think Shiragiku will be up for a war? Or Otokaze-sensei?" Eishi's gaze shifted back to the sun. Mai's lungs felt heavy with heat, but it always did, here, and it was very real, and very grounding, and one of the many reasons why she loved the desert. There was also this, this unending peace and calm, this one point of constant in a world of change.

Mai considered for a moment, then shook her head, knowing all the while that she would have to take a serious shower to get all the sand out of her hair. "Nah. Shiragiku'll probably stay with the medical nin, or the back lines. Otokaze-sensei..." She shrugged again. "Dunno. Probably."

'Wait a second." Eishi frowned and sat up. Mai scowled at him.

"What?"

"Otokaze-sensei..." Eishi slapped his forehead, then reached for his fan. "Mai, we're still Genin. We can't legally join any kind of war unless we're Chuunin."

...

~ Time to run. ~

...

Gaara would never, under torture or promise of reward, admit to how high he jumped when Mai and her teammates burst into his office with all the grace of a handful of misfired fire crackers, flinching his knees into the bottom of his desk and spilling his inkwell across a few (luckily) blank sheets of paper.

"Gaara!" Mai demanded, and out of the three she looked the most like she would have to be dragged out with force. Eishi looked a little concerned but otherwise determined, and, well, honestly, Shiragiku didn't quite look like he knew exactly what was going on, but he was going with it, standing his ground. He'd probably been dragged along the way.

"What?" he mumbled, speaking around the tongue he'd just bitten, forgetting in the suddenness of the situation his controlled demeanor. Above him he could feel his one ANBU's uncertainty, but really, Mai did this a lot. Usually, though, her teammates weren't on her heels.

"We need you to promote us so we can fight," she responded blandly, without any touch of subtlety.

Eishi groaned. "Smooth, Mai. Really smooth."

"Is that what this is about?" Shiragiku asked, leaning forward to peer at his Katon-style teammate's face. "Fighting in the war? Oh, I see. Because we're still Genin. Have you asked Otokaze-sensei yet?"

"Otokaze-sensei would just tell us to take it up with Gaara anyway," she said flippantly, waving a hand pulled out of her now crossed arms, but her eyes didn't waver. Gaara suddenly became aware of the mess he'd just made and hurried to right the inkwell, fingers smearing in black.

"How did you know about the war declaration?" was all he could really think to say, wiping off his fingers against another sheet of paper for lack of anything better. He couldn't clean ink off on his snow white robes. "You were unconscious."

"Eishi was moody and told me."

"I was not being moody!" the pink-haired Genin in question protested. "I think the word your looking for is contemplative! I was being contemplative!"

"Oh, sure, contemplative, Word Bank." Mai rolled her eyes, uncrossing her arms to rest her hands on her hilts.

"Word B-!"

"Mai, I can't just promote you to Chuunin because you want to fight in the war," Gaara interrupted to nip the blooming fight in the bud before it exploded. "In fact, that's exactly why I shouldn't promote you."

All three eyes swiveled to his, effectively distracted from the argument. "Shorty-sama," Mai whined, in a tone he really hadn't heard her use since his days at the Academy, when she'd tried to wheedle her way out of tests or class busywork. "You probably want to promote me anyway. You're always waxing on that you wish I could go on higher missions."

Gaara frowned. "I don't wax."

"Now who's the Word Bank?"

"Anyway, do you really expect us to just stay here? I mean, Shira and this loser might-" Mai jabbed her thumb in a spluttering Eishi's direction- "But you know I can't miss a good fight."

"You can miss this one." His frown deepened, and he finally put down his brush. "The Alliance-"

"Once you all clear out, what's to stop me from following you, pretty green vest I won't wear or not? It's not like you have any shinobi to spare to stay behind and guard the 'helpless Genin'." She rolled her eyes again. "And depending on where you mobilize to it's not like you can just send me back-"

"Mai-chan," Shiragiku admonished. "You have to respect whatever decision the Kazekage makes."

Mai snorted. "Yeah, sure."

Gaara pinched the bridge of his nose, brain still switching from high-grade weapon order requests to whatever this was turning into. "Does your mother know about you wanting to fight in a Shinobi World War?"

She let her eyebrows raise sarcastically. "I'm going to let you answer that."

Breathe. Breathe. Mai thrived on confrontation and word play. If he escalated this into an argument she would probably win. But now he really was stuck between a rock and a hard place, because he did want her to be a Chuunin, and he didn't want her to fight in a war, and he did realize that she would be a strong asset in such a war, but he also didn't really feel like sticking her- or any of these three- into a war against their parents very knowledge of it.

He knew Fumiko would agree with her sister. As it was, Gaara was walking on a knife's edge to avoid the topic, hoping the brown-haired girl wouldn't think on it long enough to bring up the fact that she wanted to go too, because he knew she would.

Matsuri had approached with a similar request, on behalf of Sari and the rest of her Genin class including, by default, Mai and her team as well, but he'd asked them to let him think about it. Mai would agree to no such thing.

"Look," Eishi said suddenly, breaking the awkward silence. "I get that you aren't supposed to let Genin fight for their own protection, and that this is kind of loopholing through a law and practically breaking it. But you have to understand that we aren't kids. Not me. Not Shiragiku. Not Mai. Most of the others from our Genin class are statistically just better than previous generations."

"Eishi, you're fourteen," Gaara said.

"That means nothing," Mai cut in. She smiled wryly, a thin, tilted smirk that made her scar curl. "Gaara, I fought a reincarnated previously near Kage status shinobi with sentient weapons when I was, like, ten. And you were killing experienced shinobi without having a breakdown first at eleven or twelve."

Gaara pursed his lips. "Mai-"

"This is a new generation," Eishi said, not wheedling or even insistent, eyes a deadly serious calm. "We're different. You're proof of that. Mai is. We all are." His nose wrinkled slightly. "With the exception of a few."

Mai elbowed him. "We all are," she repeated. "Me, Matsuri, these guys, Sari... everyone. We've probably been in more life-or-death situations as individuals than the Fourth's entire shinobi population!"

While that was an exaggeration, there was truth in it. Most Genin didn't even go on C-ranks until they were emancipated and joined Genin Corp. rather than staying on their teams past eighteen. Most Genin similarly didn't know how to do basic chakra control like tree-walking until they left their squads and learned the hard way. Most Genin didn't handle the real, black, ugly shinobi world well and never advanced beyond their level.

It was the same way in Konoha. The recent generations were just...

Stronger.

"And I want to fight," Shiragiku said, joining in his teammates' defense for the first time. "To protect everyone. And to protect myself." He gave an odd little half-smile. "It's the Shinobi Way, after all."

If Gaara had eyebrows they would've shot past his hairline. As it was his eyes widened fractionally.

All in the Chigusa clan tended to be, well- pacifists. While they didn't necessarily avoid murder as a shinobi, they avoided unnecessary violence, choosing a simple drop of poison over a full-blown fistfight, ghosting through their shinobi lives with little more blood on their hands than what a victim coughed up when their hearts failed.

And Shiragiku, he'd observed over time, had adopted that philosophy. Or at least, Gaara had thought he did. Maybe it had something to do with having Mai on his team. Those who mingled with the youngest Mitsuwa tended to see through her lens- sometimes, a good fight was all any problem needed.

"You want to fight?" Gaara heard himself say before he could think better of it. "All of you do?"

Mai pulled up her hilt, studying the shimmer of the few inches of silver blade that exposed itself. "Fiery ball of destruction in a war zone, right, Eishi?" She grinned, and so did Eishi, and Shiragiku shared with them a small smirk of his own. "Only, without the dying part."

The sentiment was lost on the Kazekage, but he took the strange reaction as a general assent.

He sighed, let his hand fall from his face back to the desk; wondered if he would regret this. "Tell the others. Anyone who wishes to promote themselves in time for the war, talk to Baki tomorrow, and have him test you."

Mai pumped a fist in the air, then high-fived with Eishi. "Yes!"

"It worked!"

Shiragiku's grin settled into a thin, sad line. He nodded. "Thank you, Gaara-sama."

...

~ She bolted from the shadows and into the darkness. ~

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so before I forget, I know it's not canonically stated anywhere that the Tsukoyomi keeps you trapped during the coma, and I know that Kakashi woke up for a short while before falling into the coma itself, but just roll with it. Also, I HATED wrting her nightmare, don't you dare think I enjoyed that T.T


	18. Hajime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hajime = Begin/Beginning

...

~ Mitsuwa Hanako was happier, probably, than any mother could possibly be. ~

...

Mai studied the slash marks in the training post she'd been hacking on, running her fingertips across the shallow grooves.

They were smaller than usual, and more ragged. Looking at her swords, she could easily match the blades' degradation to the folly slices she'd just cut with them- the blades were dull, and they had chips and nicks and scratches along the sharp end of the blade.

Okay, so she'd been training a lot with wood. Still, she hadn't expected them to go bad so quickly... Mai frowned, sheathing one sword and holding up the other, running her thumb across the once-razor-sharp metal and found that it didn't cut.

It wasn't good. She knew a lot about the care of swords, and rightly polished, sharpened, and otherwise maintained her weapons well- because at this rate, one or both of them would break, and that was no good in a fight, especially if it didn't break off in the opponent's body.

But it was getting so brittle...

Mai shrugged, dropping it into her remaining sheath and wiping a hand across her forehead to flick off the sweat.

All around her steel rang against wood, whether they be shuriken, kunai, or various lengths of swords. Training field number four, while it wasn't specifically created for the use of bukijutsu, that was basically what everyone used it for- it was full of wood posts and dummies, both stationary and mechanically moved about as moving targets.

She got a few curious looks as she left, stretching her arms above her head and letting her spine bend backwards before sighing and letting the rest against the back of her head. She came here all the time, as did most of these people- there weren't many in Sunagakure well-versed or specialized in bukijutsu; and those that used it on average tended to train elsewhere.

Usually, Mai stayed much, much longer than she had today, hence the weird side-glances. She'd only been here a few hours, at most, judging from the sunlight pouring through the windows. She preferred to train alone, but she worked in Area Four at least three or four times a week, give or take a few of these steel-biters.

Usually it was only when the sun was hot enough to kill a cockroach outside, like today, or even when it was starting to rain, although that was a little bit of a stupid idea given that if it really started to pour- and it always did- you'd get stranded in basically whatever building you were in when the rain first started.

There was really only a few people specialized in Bukijutsu specifically. There were a couple of Special Jonin, or basically Chuunin who were really, really good at something in particular and not really in anything else; but Mai didn't really know or particularly like any of them. Most Jonin used weapons about as much as the average ninja. Baki was sort of an exception, given that he used ninjutsu as physical-esque weaponry...

Tessenjutsu technically counted as Bukijutsu, Mai corrected herself as she let the door close behind her, squinting at the sudden change in brightness. But in her opinion, that was more like controlled, slightly enhanced ninjutsu than actual use of a weapon.

No, the only shinobi in Sunagakure who knew everything there was to know about any kind of weapon, not just Tantos like her or Shuriken like the average ninja, were the puppeteers. They were members of Puppet Corps, with nearly sixty-plus members, but only twenty six official 'specialists' the Tokubetsu Jonin and Jonin members, the one in the pictures, the teachers.

And, of course, Kankuro was in that picture.

There was a reason that she always had gone to Kankuro's workshop for blade care. It was because he always had the best kinds of polish and varnish and spinning stone wheels for sharpening, and he had five hundred weapons that he knew everything about. It was helpful to be able to get advice on the particular aspects of her specialty.

That wasn't to say that it wasn't annoying. He always wanted to 'enhance' her swords, suggested poison mechanisms and different sizes and compartments for other weapons, and refusing only shut him up for so long. She liked her blades how they were- simple, and very to the point.

Gahh. Stupid accidental puns.

Sand dug into her sandals immediately as she started to walk, heat seeping across her skin and probably mildly burning it; there really was no avoiding that in this village. Closed-toed shoes were too hot, and otherwise there was no way to keep the sand out. She scratched at a scab on her wrist from a mild razor wire scrape, smirking slightly as, once again, people moved out of her way, however slightly.

Letting her thumbs slip into her belts, she noted that maybe she would need new ones; the leather was worn and a little cracked from the constant sunlight, looking bleached-out compared to their original pitch black. Leather was hot, really, really goddamn hot, but it was excellent at blocking sharp edges. Not like the typical thin clothes worn around the area to beat the heat.

But it made it hard to train on days like this, where it felt like you were baking in some kind of grainy, windy cake pan. Heat radiated in waves off the sand itself, reflecting the rays of sunlight like a mirror, so anyone who walked outside here ever ended up trapped between two separate kinds of hot; humid and burning.

Mai was really hoping she wouldn't have to get new swords any time soon. Her Chuunin advancement exam was coming up, date set for another two weeks by Baki. Before her was Eishi's and Sari's and a few other kids she didn't know, along with Yoshiki and the Terrible Trio Shunichi, Naoki and Tadashi. After her, Matsuri and one other she didn't know the name of.

It was amazing. Everyone was ready to go to war.

It would be hard to get used to new weapons, even those of the same dimensions, quickly. She was used to the wear of the handle, the exact cut and length and reach of the blade, it's specific weight and the way they flew if she threw them. New ones would be heavier from lack of sharpening, thicker in the handle.

She wanted her swords when they went out to fight. As she walked, she thought about that- the fight.

It made her heart thrum. This, she knew, this was what she had been born for, made for, trained for. A fight. A battle, probably multiple battles, probably every single one of them to the death. It was a problem she could face, could solve, could hurt. All this politic stuff wasn't really her style.

And everyone was with her. Studying what she'd been given of the regiments, she figured she would go into Division One- specialized in mid-range, suggested to be composed mainly of Bukijutsu users. She could get some reach in with variations of Katon: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique, and others, and her swords allowed for close access. She figured that that was pretty close to what the regiment called for, and in a jam, they division would have something else if it got called for.

Eishi was coming with her, mainly because they'd trained together and knew each others styles and they were less likely to die if they worked together. Not to mention the Katon-Fuuton Long-Ranges they'd been working on. Shiragiku was going to stay with the Medic Corps tent (The Logistical Support, what?) Otokaze-sensei was separating, going into Third Division, the other division Mai had considered and ultimately decided against.

When questioned, their sensei had simply replied, "You're moving past me. If you go into this war, you're Chunin, not my Gakis anymore."

And what a way to move on it was.

...

~ The last few days at the hospital had been tense and anguished and anxious, full of machines and wobbly beeping and the harsh silence of a child not screaming. ~

...

Kankuro let out a nocommital grunt. "Well don't beat the hell out of them and they won't degrade."

"I need to train, Kankuro," Mai said, scowling, falling back on his bed. The spread was machine-oil dirty yellow striped down both sides with a dark red and blue sheets. The pillows themselves were the same shade of blue, with darker shades running stripes down their middles, meticulously lined up with the comforter's lines, which was odd compared to the general untidiness of the rest of it.

Above her head, different kinds of wooden parts dangled; wooden arms and legs and chains. A few were coated in some weird kind of substance he was testing to substitute preserved skin for his Sasori puppet. The entire room was dank and dark and smelled like oil and fumes. It was the only room she knew of that despite the lack of air conditioning, was below eighty degrees. It was actually rather cool.

The room itself looked kind of strange. One dirty beat up red brick wall was carved into to leave space for a workshop desk, a bunch of random drawers, and some tools. It slanted sharply above his head, and the worn-out charred bit above the slant made it look almost hourglass-esque. Kankuro was patriotic enough that she wouldn't really be surprised if he'd flamed it out on purpose.

Other than that one brick wall, the rest were ordinary sand plaster, worn and cracked, of course, much more so than the rest of the Tower's rooms, and combined with the darkness and unkempt mad-scientist look of the place gave it a kind of gloomy, chilly atmosphere. Even the door was weird, almost boatish in shape and plastered in wrong and overlapping.

Mai let her nose wrinkle at the grit between the sheets, squirming for a moment before sighing.

"Not really. I dunno how much better you can get in a Trainer like that," he mumbled, twisting her one right sword this way and that. "It's really not interactive enough for you."

"For me, specifically?"

He let out and aborted snort, swiveling around in the chair at his work desk, leaving the blade atop the scarred wood. Mai watched him recline from where she laid propped up against the pushed-together pillows and the wall. "Have you ever swung at one of those things, moving or not, and either missed, mis-shot, or didn't mark?"

She shrugged. "Not in a while," she said vaguely.

He snorted again, but didn't swivel back to the desk. Both of her swords laid there, sheaths unbuckled and hanging across one of the many strings of wooden beads made for puppet parts to be clamped around and hung, like some kind of shadowed macabre clothesline.

"Hey, you're testing for Chuunin soon, right?"

"Yeah, and no one'll tell me what it is. If it's paper I might possibly be screwed. But it's gotta be some kind of mix from the Chuunin exams, right? Not that we have a lot of time." She blinked. "Hey, wait. Didn't you get field-promoted?"

"On the spot, sorry." He grinned. "Mid-mission I got authorized to lead since our leader got mowed."

"And you didn't have to test? Ugh." She reached absently for her earring, the cool circle at the end of a short gold chain studded with a little bump of a ruby, lukewarm to her rubbing fingertips. "That's not fair. It's not like the Kazekage was on your team."

"Nah. But the guy was authorized. Anyway, about your swords." He shrugged. "I suggest you get them recasted. I know you love the things, but Fumiko didn't really know what she was doing when she had them made- just mostly kept to the original design from the Academy. You could really up it, change the metal, the strength."

"Like what?" She let her eyes roll all the way to the window, drawn with shades to keep the light out. He even had seals in the place to keep out the light and the water and the heat, and they only let him turn on the bedroom lights, which he usually kept flicked off. Light strained thinly through the black-purple material.

"I don't know. Ask the blacksmith what he's got. Tamahagane if they still do that."

"Tamaha what?" She let her lips press into a frown, drawing one leg up until the heel touched her butt. "Like the Iron Sand stuff? We haven't been able to really find that stuff since the third."

"Iron Sand is Iron Sand," he said with a shrug. "Whether or not someone has Magnet Release it should still exist, right?"

"Maybe." But that was something to think about; wasn't it? Tamahagane-made swords were common in only the Land of Iron, no longer really made, full of heirlooms now that they had developed chakra blades. There were a ton in way of puppet mechanisms from when the Third had used Magnet Release, and the Fourth to a different extent. "I kinda like the ones I got, though."

He reached up with one hand and tugged at the end of his black hat, tilting the ear just so. "If you go to war with those the way they are now, they're gonna snap. And then you'll have to use someone else's, if you don't die first."

She scowled. "I'm perfectly capable of k- beating someone without my swords, thanks." Swords, fire, poison gas, strung razor wire, shuriken to the heart, shuriken to the throat, fist to the... There were just a lot of ways to kill people. Probably too many ways. They were listed in textbooks, shared in squads, burned in her mind...

"Oookay." Kankuro frowned. "Um. But yeah. If you really like these particular blades so much, you can ask to have the salvageable stuff smelted into the new metal, or even make new weapons with it."

...

~ Everyone had thought it was a lost cause. For two days, Fumiko barely breathed, made no sound. The only reason to guess she was alive was the occasional hiccup, the ringing of the heart monitor that sometimes flatlined, the orders from the medic-nin with glowing hands all over her firstborn child. ~

...

Cat tagged a ride to the blacksmith's. Why, she had no clue, but by the time she'd registered the animal's claws in her pants she'd already been halfway out the door, and thus, didn't really care.

He looked much better now. The scrawny, ribby bag-of-bones she'd found was less baggy and bony and actually was a little fat, now, because Mitsuwa Hanako had a soft spot for cute things, and Cat, a soft spot for milk and tuna. His fur was thickening in places that had once been thinning bald spots, and it was shiny.

He mewled in her ear, snuffling, and she jerked her shoulder to dislodge with a grumble. The Cat whined, a little angry crying sound, but she scoffed. "Do not put your nose in my ear. It feels weird."

"Mrow."

"I'll take that as submission." She scratched at it's ear, careful not to knock him off by tilting her shoulder blade too far. Cat purred, leaning the entire side of her head into Mai's hand, tail swishing through her hair. She probably looked like a freak to passersby, but then the passersby already thought she was a freak, so it wasn't like it really mattered.

Eventually she reached the blacksmith's, a squat little building on the outskirts with a rare basement to work and a lobby on the normal first floor for selling things and taking orders. The blacksmith himself was a friendly, broad-shouldered civilian man with long sun-bleached hair pulled into a tight ponytail and burn scars across his body.

She didn't even know his name. Everyone she knew who came here just called him 'The Blacksmith.'

Right away, he noticed her entry, despite the fact that the little bell atop the door hadn't jingled. Cat meowed at him as he grinned and stood up from where he sat behind the desk and made his way through the displays, arms raised.

"Mai-chan! San? Sama if the Kazekage gets married? Oh, well! It's been too long!"

"Uh, hey, hi," she said, spinning away from his hug. He didn't really seem offended. The man had dealt in shinobi before. "Swords." Cat mewled again, a loud gurrhr sound that meant he was hungry and getting irritable which was stupid because we just left the house you baka. "Shut up, Cat. I mean. I don't talk to cats!"

The Blacksmith grinned, tried to clap his huge hand against her shoulder and only laughed when she moved away in the blink of an eye. "Eh, well, let's see what we can do. What'd you need?"

...

~ Fukuda had been worried sick, pacing furrows in the floor, and for those two days both of them had cried because he had been right to worry, right to list every possible worst case scenario, right to nag her to sit down or stop working or not to use her chakra excessively. ~

...

Fumiko swung her legs lightly, licking peach ice cream with actual peach slices in it off her spoon. Beside her, Gaara had set aside his Sea Salt single scoop cup to the side, careful to push it away from the edge of the wall, and leaned forward slightly, hands braced on the very edge.

"Katon: Great Flame Flower!"

Far below- to her eyes- there was an unclear red and black shape spitting fire. To Gaara, the image was probably a lot clearer. But they both watched intently as fire burst after fire burst spiraled into the air and across the sand, curling and licking.

Gaara had finally and completely caught up to himself, and there hadn't been anything else for him to do. He hadn't necessarily gotten the day off, but they had gone out to celebrate anyway in time to see the sunset. At this point, she could no longer really see the toes of her right foot over the canteloupe-watermelon of her stomach at twenty one and a half weeks, so Gaara had mother-henned the entire way up, although in his defense she'd fallen off those sandstone steps before.

It had been purely by accident that they'd seen her- well, less by accident and more like holy-sugar-on-a-peach-where-did-that-fire-dragon-come-from when a huge billow of a dragon-shaped flamethrower singed across the air just six or seven yards away, hot enough to make their ice cream melt quicker than the sun ever could have.

Gaara had very nearly picked up the sand underneath Mai's feet and grabbed her, but at the last second Fumiko had recognized her sister's sizzling gold chakra and pulled him back down by the sleeve.

And now they were watching.

Gaara had informed her already that Mai was without her scabbards, not even wearing the belts they were clipped to. And Fumiko would ask about that later, but for now, they just watched her train, not knowing if she knew they were there or not, throwing flaming shuriken into the walls and fireballs and again that really intense streamline of flame.

Every now and again Mai gushed something black like she was throwing up, and it lit up all along the liquid until even the sand was on fire around her. Fumiko took another bite of ice cream contemplatively. She sucked on the spoon, gnawing a little on the tip.

"Is that oil?" she asked around the plastic, slurred. "That she's coughing up?"

"Yes." His head tilted slightly, and his mouth drew down, almost without any sadness at all. His expression was mixed. "I didn't realize... It's been awhile since we last trained together. I didn't realize her jutsu had developed so far..."

"I guess we missed something," she mused. "She's changed a lot, huh?"

"Yes," Gaara repeated. Then he smiled, a tiny tweak of his lips. "I don't think she ever stopped changing."

"Yeah." She hummed at the kick in her stomach, dropping the spoon into her cup in favor of resting her palm across the thin fabric of her maternity shirt. "Uh. Hey, Gaara, hey-" She put her cup down, still with ice cream inside it, next to Gaara's and grabbed his hand, guiding it to settle on her stomach. "Feel."

He darkened slightly, but said nothing else, humming a restless, tuneless note.

"Katon: Dragon Flame Re- guys! What are you doing up there?!"

...

~ But it had been so much worse than the worst case scenario. The doctors had told them to let her go, her mother had told her to let her go, the nurses, everyone. ~

...

It was rare for Fumiko to wake up first, and when she did, it usually didn't last long. Gaara's ears were so attuned to his environment, even in sleep, that usually he woke up immediately if she tried to get up or even move too much.

She could only imagine how many times a night he woke up, but he got at least two or three hours of sleep a night if not more, and that was more than he had ever hoped to be able to sleep. They could both run on that much and be fine; they could both still stay awake for at least a week without needing sleep.

So usually, she didn't really get to see Gaara sleep.

Now was one of those rare moments. One of the perks of waking up mostly aware- give and take, depending on what dream she'd been having- was that she was able to think don't move when she opened her eyes and found herself staring at two blackened ovals, Gaara's mouth open slightly, curled just so into himself, knees barely raised, arms against each other, hand on the pillows.

She herself was under the blue comforter. Gaara was sort of under it; it was cast over most of his torso and shoulder blades, but in sleep she'd tugged it away from his legs and waist.

She smiled. Watching Gaara sleep was like watching a deathmatch end in a hug- unlikely and peaceful and adored.

Usually whenever this happened, when it ever did at all, she had to wake him up because it meant he was about to be late because he wasn't ready and hadn't taken a shower or found everything he needed to work on or with. But today was another one of those sort of bitter and sort of sweet days, because it was off- because of an Elders meeting to discuss the coming Shinobi War.

Joy.

She reached out with one arm, hesitated with her fingertips just a breadth away from the smooth paleness of his face, just beyond his eye, where his skin met his hairline. Then she let her hand withdraw and braced it instead on the sheets to slide across them, ducking her chin to line up with Gaara's nodded head, and kissed him softly.

There was a little whuff of a surprised breath against her mouth, and in return she giggled into his. Gaara's eyes cracked open in sleepy slits as she pulled away, letting her head rest on his pillow, the tip of her nose half an inch away from his.

Fumiko smiled again, wider. "Good morning," she said.

"Good morning," he murmured. The glassy sleep in his eyes was fading into awareness.

She let her legs curl up as far as they could; let her toes poke Gaara's thigh. "Sleep well?"

This was rewarded with a little sigh-grunt and a wry twist of his lips. "Well enough," he answered smoothly (which of course meant he'd woken up a bajillion times and it was probably mostly her fault.) His hand moved across the pillow to tug softly on a loose long lock of hair. Of course he didn't say 'And you?' because chances were each on of those bajillion times he'd spent at least a few seconds checking to make sure all was well.

"Do you want me to make breakfast? You can take a shower while I do."

"Mm." He tugged again, then moved to actually touch her face. In retaliation, she poked his cheek. "No."

It was in these moments that war seemed to be the last thing on her mind, warm and happy and content with sand grains already starting to dance about his eyes, sunlight already streaming into the room right through the blue curtains, dusty red creeping along her best friend's cheekbones even as he smiled like a shy little boy and not at all like the big, bad Kazekage the world knew.

"But we have to get ready," she teased lightly, about as ready to move as he was.

"Not for another two hours," he said easily, teal eyes flickering for only a split second up past her face to the clock before flickering right back down.

Fumiko grinned, dropping her arm and poking at his chest instead. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay." She giggled again, then wriggled closer. "Just don't let me fall asleep again. I'll never make breakfast and you'll be hungry at your meeting and I'll never wake up, either."

"Ugh." The near playful gentleness in his smile dropped, and he turned his head to bury his face in the pillow. He blushed more when Fumiko straight out laughed at his instantaneous reaction, rubbing her nose into his arm, still trapped under her ear. "I don't want to go," he muttered, voice muffled in the pillow.

"Come on, lets get up," she said cheerfully, pecked his cheek, and rolled up to her knees, yawning for the first time since waking up and stretching her arms above her head, shoulders clicking. When Gaara didn't move, still grumbling into his pillow, not even drawing his arm under the safety of the covers, she just laughed again and swung her legs over the side of the bed to slide carefully to the floor.

She grabbed her prosthetic and sock, sliding both on. Her skin tingled as the sock pulled at her chakra, and then she stood, wobbling a little before regaining her balance. "I'm gonna change," she said, glancing back once before heading over to the closet.

His still muffled response was something like "Mmnkay."

She snickered, reaching for the knob of the closet door. "Take a shower, Kazekage."

...

~ And briefly, for a moment, they had given up on their child. They had caved. ~

...

Fumiko alternated between biting out of a peach kept on hand nearby on a little plastic plate and stirring the pot of bubbling oatmeal on the stove. Oatmeal on it's own tended to be pretty bland, but her own recipes were about as sweet and flavored as you could get with brown sugar and normal sugar and dried apricots. It was quick, it was easy, and it was easily reheated.

Gaara was probably still in the shower, judging from the lack of his presence, or maybe he was just getting dressed.

She was done with the peach before the oatmeal finished, dropping the pit into the empty apricot bowl on the counter. Gaara as well wandered into the kitchen just a few minutes before it was actually done, and helped her pour it out into bowls for everyone- herself, him, Mai, Kankuro, and Temari. Nobody else but them was up yet, or else wasn't in the kitchen at least, so they just set up the placemats and put paper towels over the bowls to keep them warm.

Gaara thumbed a bit of oatmeal off her chin, shaking his head.

She grinned and licked the spoon. "It's on your face too," she warned.

They ate together, a rare occurrence in the kitchen at least, talking and laughing and shaking sugar like salt over their food. Temari joined them almost just as they were leaving, grunting in approval over the already made pot of coffee and food on the table.

"Good luck," she snorted. "Kankuro actually got up first. I think he's working on his puppets. He might be late if he drops in here for something to eat."

Gaara grimaced. "I hope not."

"Ahh, it'll be fine, Gaara," Fumiko sang from the sink as she rinsed off her dish and tossed it in the dishwasher. She toweled off her hands, turning back around to face them both with an easy smile. Temari looked a little tired, eyes baggy and face a little pinched and drawn, but she smirked back. "It's not like we ever lose, anyway. Who knows, maybe they'll even go for it."

"I highly doubt it," he said distastefully. "These almost never go well. And if it was anything like last time I think I might instate a term length to being a Council member."

Humming at the reminder, Fumiko tapped her fingertips against her stomach. Today she wore a light purple shirt, with a low, half-circle neckline and half-sleeves. Her cutoff sweatpants- sweatshorts?- were a spectacular shade of emerald green. "They didn't tell you why they wanted a meeting aside from discussing it, right? Could be all funding and Daimyo stuff."

"The Daimyo hasn't responded either." Temari cut in. "But it's still pending."

"Lets just go," Gaara said, reaching up to tug on the brim of his Kage hat. "We won't know until we get there."

...

~ But the medic-nin stepped back, green fading, and eyes welled with tears, and she clutched at her husband, who clutched her right back. The doctors had begun to apologize, begun to unhook the monitor going beeeeeeeeee-

...

As it turned out, Fumiko had nearly hit home.

The meeting wasn't nearly as bad as he'd expected. A little boring, but that was to be expected, a lot about where the funds would come from, and what it would look like to partner with the allying villages, and more on how it would look to include villages other than the original Great Five of the Elemental Nations.

But they understood that unlike the Summit, it would be more dangerous not to act than to step up. They couldn't possibly sit back and hope it would all die down, this was a literal war, declared by the self-proclaimed Uchiha Madara himself. And it helped that they'd gotten confirmation just days before that in all likelihood, he as Kazekage would be the Regimental Commander.

They weren't particularly pleased that the Raikage was the leader of the entire Allied Nations pitch, but they scrapped with what they had. This was an entirely different side to them that Gaara hadn't previously had the pleasure to experience- efficient, ready to collaborate.

And the few people who protested- and when an Elder protested they really protested, it was like trying to argue with a political Mai- were shut up halfway through the meeting when a messenger shinobi darted inside with a message scroll fresh from the decoding room, broken official seal of the Land of Wind's Daimyo on either end.

It was a pleasant surprise. Fumiko read it aloud.

"On behalf of the Land of Wind, I, Daimyo of my respective Land, in regards to the request for approval on the participation in the declared Fourth Shinobi World War, grant both permission to use the majority of Wind's land and resources and to use a specified portion of... oh! He's funding us!" She exclaimed, completely abandoning the ultra-formal, rigid katakana.

At the startled looks of those around the circled table, Gaara had to put a hand over his mouth under the guise of resting his chin in his palm thoughtfully to hide his smile. Fumiko looked about ready to start legitimately glowing, and she handed the scroll off to the Elder nearest to her, like this was show and tell in grade school and she was passing it around.

...

~ But then it had hiccupped. Stopped and started and stopped and started, beep beep beep beepbeepbeep.

...

"Hey, can I put you under a Genjutsu?"

"What?" Gaara blinked at her, eyes flickering away from the television.

It'd been a while since they had built a fort together, and they were out of practice- it had taken them nearly three hours to find, scavenge and put together all the pieces, although that might've had something to do with her taking frequent breaks to just lay on her body pillow and watch him work.

Now some princess movie or another was playing- really she didn't even remember buying it and had no idea where it came from, but the summary was okay and she recognized the actress' name from one of Uzumaki Naruto's stories, so they'd put it in.

"I asked if I could put you under a Genjutsu." Fumiko shifted a little against his side, squirming until she was comfortable, back a little straighter.

"... Why?"

"Oh, the doctors showed me how to take my own sonogram scan this time." That had been interesting, and it took way less precise control than she'd expected. "It's uh... it's really hard to explain, and I can't really even see it, it's just sort of a mind's eye thing..."

"Where did that come from?"

She shrugged. "The Genjutsu in the movie."

He quirked a brow, but smiled, fingers tightening on her shoulder. "Yes. Alright."

"Okay." She didn't even need to make a hand sign- it wasn't like Gaara was going to try and break out of it. Actually, she didn't really need to move at all, since she was comfy and warm and cool at the same time, so she just closed her eyes from the movie and forced her gates to sew shut,dropped her hand against her stomach, fingers green, then let her chakra flow straight from her skin into Gaara's.

She hadn't been kidding when she said that it was hard to describe. It was really just bulges, squirmy-looking bulges. The images in her mind from her hand seemed to flicker in and out of focus, and things didn't really look like anything unless you knew what you were looking for, which she did, and which she was pretty sure Gaara didn't, but she was also pretty sure that she knew Gaara well and that he would probably look it up somewhere without telling anyone.

His eyes clouded over, head drooping back against the headboard. They'd tented around the bed, because while they didn't get time often to do things like this, she wasn't exactly willing nor allowed to sleep on the floor.

The movie droned in her ears like a buzzing fly as she concentrated, but after a moment she let everything drop. Gaara blinked, roused; muscles tensing once more to his most relaxed state.

"... Oh."

...

~ And her child had screamed. ~

...

Eishi had often wondered if Mai was human.

Now he wondered if she ever slept, ate, or even relaxed. Although she assured him otherwise, he wasn't really sure.

He dropped on his ass as soon as her arms fell back, panting, more or less throwing his folding fan on the sand dune beside him. Then he flopped all the way onto his back, making a face at the way the sand stuck to his sweat but unwilling to move.

"You lose," she said, panting just as much as him except she didn't really fall, just calmly walked to where his head had flopped and sat down. "Are you- done?"

"Done?" he gasped out. "What, are you not?"

She grinned at him, teeth glinting in the harsh sunlight outside the wall and away from the shade of towering buildings. "Not really," she said vaguely. "Sorry for burning your fan. But in my defense, that's what you get for throwing me into the wall."

"Ugh."

Her head tilted, shadows slanting suddenly across her face as the sun touched her bangs. "You gonna stay out here?"

"Yes!"

"Well, have fun cooking." She stood and stretched, then grinned again, kicking lightly at his torso. He grunted and whacked at her ankle. "Imma head down to trainer nine. And I think we got some good shit going with that mix, but you'll charbroil us both if you don't get a handle on that tornado."

"Tornados can't- just be handled, Mai."

She shrugged. "Just saying. I mean it'd be great if we were the only shinobi in the melee but if we aren't, we're taking everyone else out at the same time."

"Go away, Mai."

The brown-eyed kunoichi barked out a quick laugh before snapping off a sarcastic salute and turning on her heel, leaving him to his peaceful, hot solitude in the sand. He turned his head to watch her back as she walked quickly away, blowing hair out of his eyes. She didn't seem to notice, tucking her thumbs into her pants for lack of her belt sheaths, kicking up sand as she went.

Something had shifted in his teammate. Eishi wasn't quite sure what.

Really, training had pretty much been Mai's lifestyle since the very beginning. A lot of people thought she was just naturally a kind of physical genius, and maybe she was- but she had always trained, always stayed after hours at the Academy to use their arena for shuriken training and fighting techniques. And it helped; she creamed competition in the graded spars.

Being in the same team as her had always found her early to team training exercises, zealous in everything they tried as long as it wasn't stupid, disdain for anyone who couldn't keep up. It was exhausting, like she couldn't run out of energy, out of power. And that might have been partly his fault along with the rest of his Genin class- forced her to take on a personae ad prove herself, fight for every word that passed through their ears.

She'd always had that drive to be stronger- not necessarily stronger than the day before, but stronger than everyone else. Mai was near obsessive in that regard. But it had cooled into kind of a force of habit, the only thing she knew, just the way of her world. She wasn't really the type to have a lazy Saturday off or sit two hours through the latest movie or play a video game when she could improve.

But now there was a touch of that obsessiveness that he remembered, only now, it was better hidden and not his fault, so far as he could tell. She seemed perfectly normal, but she didn't relax the way she used to- not after training, not into conversations.

Watching her 'sleep' during the interval between the Gokage Summit and Sakura arriving at Suna had been... well, unnerving, to say the least. He and Shiragiku hadn't really left her bedside at all. It was probably the first time he'd ever seen Shiragiku nervous- scared- and it was second only to Gaara's expression in that big, pillared room, having found both Mitsuwa sisters before they had.

He was almost tempted to ask what she'd seen that made her scream like a wounded animal upon awakening, but he wasn't a complete idiot. Either she would tell him or she wouldn't. It had always been that way, and it probably always would. He hadn't asked after her weird behavior after Gaara's death. He hadn't mentioned that day in Konoha during the Peins' invasion.

He wouldn't say anything about this, either.

...

~ And now she rocked little Fumiko, warm little brown-haired, doe-eyed Fumiko who gurgled and wriggled in her blankets like a normal child, like a perfectly normal, healthy child. ~

...

Using his kekkei genkai was... taxing, to say the least.

Little things, the instinctive, unnoticed things- greening plants the closer he got to them, energizing cut stems, growing little flowers and weeds when he got bored or frightened or nervous- those were easy. But actually fighting with it...

And to practice in the desert of all places was hard as well. While the Chigusa clan's outskirts housing at the back of the village near the greenhouses had a considerable amount of life compared to the rest of the village- sparse sawgrass and small and large cacti- that didn't make it any easier to train. Without the help of natural soil nutrients and water, he was left having to use his jutsu entirely to support it.

Shiragiku sighed, half from frustration and halfway a shaky exhalation of air. Heat pounded his bare arms and neck, hair drawn in it's loose ponytail.

"Shira-kun, I know it's hard, but you have to keep trying," His father said gently. Shiragiku's offensive stalk was nubbish in comparison to his Tou-san's, like a child standing before a great oak. In a hurry, he could raise it perhaps three, four feet, but that wasn't enough to do anything more than trip an enemy, and it depleted his chakra almost completely.

"H..." He wiped at his forehead, managing a weak smile. He'd thrown off his pale green haori in the heat of the spar, leaving behind his white tank top and the sash of various seeds across his chest. "Hai, Tou-san."

Some of his seeds' plants were poisonous. Those were his specialty- grow them enough and they would spit poison spores or scents or even have poison leaves with waxy outcoverings that if they so much as brushed it, their skin would break out in violent, painful rashes.

But the plain vines, the trunks that when used by his father could grow as thick and tall as a tree, quicker than a serpent in movement, they could be used to a near Wood Style accuracy, only more easily broken, like a flower stem against a twig- those were difficult. Difficult, annoying, and time-consuming. But in a close up fight, he would probably need it, especially if he was outnumbered.

Although he'd taken more to use his knuckle knives- wicked curved blades that jutted out a few inches beyond the ends of the brass knuckles, with hollow tubes and needle tips at each knife tip that could inject poisons at a breakneck speed; taijutsu was his strong point, unlike most in his clan. But to fight with Mai and Eishi one needed taijutsu and long range skills, every combination relied on one or both from them all.

"It will get easier with repetition," his father advised, then smiled. "We have plenty of time. Yeijiro-kun is taking up your spot in the greenhouses, so you don't have to worry about work. If you're going to war, you're going to need every spare second."

He smiled back, straightening, reaching up to grasp the little pouch of herbs resting against the center of his chest. Without his tunic, it was easy to see the good luck charm, filled with dried bits of calming herbs, both in scent and practice.

"Yes. Let's keep going," he said, but no sooner had the words left his mouth that the back door of his house opened to reveal his mother and youngest brother. Kenzan, still too young to help in either the greenhouses or around the house, giggled from behind his mother's skirts.

Chigusa Misaki, married into the clan, with dirty blond hair piled into a bun and wrapped in a head scarf and dark blue eyes like violet water, smiled at his, wiping her hands off on a dishtowel.

"Maa, Gengyo, Shira-kun, come on inside for now. Dinner's ready. You've been at it for hours."

"Whoa!" Kenzan exclaimed, peeking further around the light green fabric of their mother's thin dress, tiny hands gripping it into wrinkling, blond hair scattering into his eyes. With one finger he pointed to his tiny stalk of plant fibre. "Nii-san, Nii-san, did you make that? Did you grow it?"

"Kenzan-kun, you should see Tou-san's," he advised, but smiled gently, reaching up to tuck a loose bang behind his ear and expose, on habit, the red diamond in the center of his forehead, identical to both his father's and Kezan's marks. "Mine is nothing in comparison."

"Come inside for dinner, now," their mother scolded, but her lips twitched into a smile. "The sand's getting inside."

"Alright, Kaa-chan," he said, and knelt to pick up his tunic. His father let out a breath, then headed for the door. Kenzan disappeared into the house, probably to try and help his older sister Kaiya set the table. Shiragiku followed both of them, passing by his mother and into the threshold of his home, leaving behind the tiny growth he'd managed to summon.

...

~ Like a miracle child. ~

...

"If you really want to hit someone hard, you gotta make it sharp," Temari said in a voice toned like a warning. Eishi straightened, letting the edge of his opened fan dig into the sand. "If it's just a bunch of wind, it's only good for distraction, defense, or combination attacks."

"But how do I make it sharp?"

She rolled her eyes. "For the hundredth time, Eishi-kun, you just have to imagine your chakra being sharp. The sharper, the better, as thin as you can get it. Once your focus is better and you're used to it, you'll be able to chop it up, make it a barrage instead of just a pulse."

"Like how you cut down trees?" he questioned, frowning down at the circles on his fan, leaning his arms against the black tip of the end of the folding part. Fans looked a little like beach shells, he decided. Round, with a single bit of fold on the end.

"Exactly," she said with a sharp grin.

Eishi had been surprised when the eldest ex Sand Siblings member agreed to help him once more with her techniques. He'd only ever learned tessenjutsu from her, during her few months working at the Academy, and she was also one of the strongest their was.

Mai was right about one thing- he really needed to get a better grip on his wind if he wanted to be useful for anything other than blowing people away. Temari armed with his taijutsu close-range fans could cut off a person's head from a quarter mile away with one sharp wave, but the only time Eishi was actually able to cut with wind was when he was up close, which was their entire purpose.

They worked just like normal weapons, though. Steel folding fans either way, tessenjutsu or not, could be used as blade weapons, slashing and cutting, and if you folded it and it was long enough you could smash them into temples. But they could also be used to harness wind at close range without the heavy bulk of swinging a giant folding fan.

Mai and Shiragiku both fought well in close combat. It was one of the reasons they were a so-called 'piercing' squad- Eishi had long range, mid range, and close range attacks, as did Mai, who used fire, swords, and various shinobi tools along with simple taijutsu. Eishi had his knuckle duster poison blades and his poison plants, and according to him fairly soon he'd have his kekkei genkai under control.

They could definitely 'pierce' no matter what direction or for what context they were doing it in.

But really, unless he combined with Mai's fire, the best he could do was keep people away or knock them over with his wind style. Occasionally he did cut, depending on his focus and drive, but usually he preferred close-range combat or mid-range assistance to his two teammates.

They hadn't been a team for very long. Only a year, barely more than that. He was fourteen, Shiragiku the same age, Mai thirteen. They had only trained together with Otokaze-sensei for a year, compared to the usual four or five between Chuunin Exams. But they worked well together. Well enough that Eishi was following Mai into First Division purely to use their combination techniques, which required the use of his giant fan.

Not to mention that it took much less than a year to figure someone's fighting style out. They all three could fight seamlessly around each other, covering backs and rolling out of the way and knowing when to assist, when to come forward, when to back off. In pairs, Eishi could fight with both, although Mai didn't seem to do as well with only Shiragiku, almost stumbling into his poison traps on occasion.

So chances were that he would use both aspects of his tessenjutsu skill set, Taijutsu and Cutting Wind.

"Okay," he grumbled. "But do you have any, y'know, physical advice, or do I just have to keep visualizing everything?"

His former sensei snickered. "Haven't you ever learned how to whistle?"

"No." He scowled. "And I don't like that analogy."

"Look, kid, chakra isn't really that physical. It's not physical or mental, it's just both." She waved a hand, jerking her fan with the other to snap it shut, leaving a furrow in the sand. "You gotta learn how to do it yourself. I'm giving you the ingredients, but you're the one that has to make it from scratch."

"I suck at cooking."

"You're such a brat. At least you cut the wood a bit. It's a start."

"Not a brat, just in a hurry. My trial exam is in a week, and the wars going to be in, what, another five or six months? It supposed to take longer than that to master an element."

"Well then," Temari said, raising her eyebrow. "You better get to it."

"Why did I ask you for help again, Temari-sensei?" But he knew she was right. Muttering about it wasn't really going to make the process any easier. Mai and Fumiko had both worked it out on their own in a matter of months, so why couldn't he? And it wasn't like he was starting from the very beginning, he was just learni8ng to do something new with what he already had.

She flipped an imaginary lock of hair over her shoulder, then smirked. "Because you need me, of course."

"Of course," he echoed, then grinned back.

Temari scoffed. "Weren't you supposed to be home in time for dinner?"

Eishi blanched, remembering just as the words left the blond kunoichi's mouth his pinkette mother's warning. He'd been hours late for the past three days... and judging by the sun, he was set to do it again. "Ah, shit. I gotta go, Sensei."

...

~ "Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings," she sang softly at her fussy baby. "Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes; Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging, Swinging the nest where her little one lies." ~

...

"Could you do that any louder?"

"Sure, dad!"

"Mai! It's too late for you to be banging away at that thing!"

"Apparently not!"

Thump-thump-wham. Thump-thump-wham. Thump- thump- wham!

"You're impossible! Even if you did go out to that big shinobi war everyone's talking about- which you won't- it's not like shaving an hour off this ridiculous routine is going to get you killed!"

"Lie," she called through the door, which her father couldn't open. "Repetition is key to muscle memory which is key to-"

"Ugh!"

She could hear his footsteps thumping away, treads even, and just to piss him off she right-left jabbed in perfect sync with his every footfall. He grumbled loudly, voice fading as he left the hallway to her and Fumiko's old rooms.

Mai could feel her cat's eyes on her back as she whaled away at her punching bag, but she ignored it. The strange animal didn't seem remotely concerned about the noise like most would be, didn't really wander around outside her room unless he was either following her, on her, or begging her mother for food.

He was probably picking at the mostly eaten grapefruit on the table without alerting her, nibbling at the rinds to get the last bits off. Mai hadn't even known that cats could eat grapefruit, but hers seemed to like it well enough. That, and dried jerky. Cat had good taste in food if nothing else.

One of her knuckles was split where she'd slipped with her chakra; the pinky of her right hand. It stung in a numb kind of way with every repetition, but that was fine, she'd wrapped both hands in loose bandages since then just in case it happened again. Her reserves were pretty low from practicing her Katon, but there was mostly enough for this.

Thump. Thump. Chakra exhaustion was good anyway, she decided as she brought up her foot in a front kick. Wham! It stretched out her coils and in the long run gave her a better reserve long-term. Maybe that would be a good idea before the war, just keep exhausting her stores every day until maybe the last two weeks before it for maximum reserves.

The bag swung and she sidestepped it like it was an enemy, knocking the side of her fist against the leather hard where the back of the average person's neck would be.

In a real situation they probably would have dropped, but the bag just finished its swing before settling back into a stationary position. Mai bit the inside of her cheek, stepping back for a second, unwinding and winding the end of the bandage across her left palm.

Muscle burn, and she felt like she was going to be sick with lack of chakra. Was it better to keep at it like she usually did, or stop now and hit the sack to let her body shut down and generate more chakra, if she was going for depletion exercises?

Glancing at her hands, she realized the little pulsing spot had a bit of red over it, seeped into the bandage. She shook her hand out, feeling the pops, weary joints complaining. It was late. Her mother would be homes soon from the hospital. Her dad was already home; she could hear him shuffling about in his bedroom.

Her door was locked. It was usually closed, anyway, so it didn't make her feel any more or less trapped than usual. If her window was big enough for a shinobi to break through, then it would be different, a possible escape route cut off. But as it was, the only human being fitting through that porthole would be an infant, so it was actually better for her nerves to keep the only way in secured.

By looking up at the window, her gaze tracked automatically the thin beams of moonlight, which fell directly onto her dahlia flowers. They were flourishing in the planter, which was a little strange. It was a new habit over the weekends to take care of them, weeding the little things that popped up hear and there, pruning off dead leaves, watering it.

She never really went so far as to get it fertilizer or repot the soil, but still, she took care of it. The fiery colors seemed nearly out of place, flower heads rising surrounded by weapons and punching bags and piled flurries of sand from where they spilled. It turned this room, instantly, into an oxymoron, of sorts.

At the front of the apartment floor of their house, the door opened. It took merely a second to identify Mitsuwa Hanako's chakra coming through the door, so Mai relaxed from the moment of tenseness and cast a quick look at Cat- who looked suddenly away from her fruit leftovers, nose and mouth stained with little pink globs- before starting back up.

Another hour. She would go for another hour, then go to bed, or maybe stay up and reread that one fight in Seirito. 'I have no words. My voice is in my sword. Thou bloodier villain/Than terms can give thee out!'

"Mai?" her mother rapped at her door, interrupting the right-left jabs halfway. Cat mewled. "Dinner's ready. I started the stew this morning."

She didn't move to unlock the door. "I'm not hungry, mom. Just ate."

"Are you sure?"

Wham. Her bag bounced and swung back against her knee. "Yeah."

"... Alright."

...

~ Outside the door she could hear Fukuda talking to her mother, both of them relieved and teary. ~

...

It was with a flourish that she added the final stroke of paint to the last image in the nursery, which Gaara had helped to clear out and organize with shelves and drawers. Now the floor was clear.

On each of the four walls were scenes from various places- the desert dunes, tops of trees, the woody forest of Konoha; a lapping shore, snow, the craggy landscape from Village of Stones that she'd seen pictures for. There were little bits of every environment, a biosphere in a single room.

The ceiling was coated in stars, painstakingly copied over from her star charts, constellations roved in a circle from the focal point of the single bright light in the very center of the ceiling. Slices cut by dark blue lines, barely tangible from the soft black, separated the different views by season.

And everywhere there were little addition, cutesy cartoonish animals and swirls of colors like rainbows and rain and sand, even outdoor fire pits like campfires Gaara had made before, tidbits she'd painted while bored.

It was all with baby-safe paints that she hadn't made but bought specifically for that purpose. The cribs and drawers and dressers and toy trunks were organized against the wall to keep up the aesthetics, but the room was a beautiful mismatched masterpiece.

"Finally," she said, and patted at the sand with her hand. Gaara lowered the suspension down until she stood alone- well, mostly alone, he had his hand on her shoulder, but that was more of a just-in-case than actually support.

"Finally," he agreed. "You worked hard on this place."

"You helped, too."

"I moved things and helped roller the first coat of white."

"You still helped." She patted at his cheek, leaving behind a few smears of green. She laughed when, feeling it, Gaara's nose scrunched and he reached to wipe it off, leaving some of it behind smudged in a few straight, broken, smudged line from his ear to his nose.

"Hey," he muttered.

Then she gasped. "Oh! Hey! I have an idea! Lets do handprints!"

"Lets do- what?" he stammered as she twirled out of his arms towards the four cans of paint left in the rooms. After this, all that was left to do was take out the tarp and let the paint dry, and it would be ready! The twins weren't due for at least another fourteen or fifteen weeks- almost four months.

She wondered what it would be like to be born just a month or less away from war.

"Do handprints!" Fumiko banished the disturbing thought, bracing her palm against a dry spot of the wall to lean over and dunk her entire mostly clean right hand into the tub of blue, then her left. She straightened before turning, grinning widely, holding up her dripping hands. "We can leave handprints, like signatures!"

"Why?"

"Why not?"

Gaara blinked at the simplicity of her statement, then smiled slightly. "You go ahead."

"Noo, come on! We both have to do it!" She pointed to the paints- green, red, and blue- splattering little blue droplets across the tarp. By this point, even the bottom of her shoe and her prosthetic were dried with crusted colors of paint from that tarp.

With a little more prodding and poking, she finally managed to convince him to paint a thin coat of red across his palms and fingers. It was probably more sensible than what she had done; he would be able to wash it off later. She herself would be lucky not to have blue hands the next day.

"Where?" he asked, eager to get the cold liquid off his fingers.

"Ummm..." Her eyes landed on a not-quite-blank-but-painted-desert-colors edge of her raised Sunagakure dunes scenery. "We can do it on the sand! Like on one of my paintings."

"That is one of your paintings."

She laughed, not quite managing to skip tot he sliver of wall. There was enough space to do their two sets and more. Gaara followed, holding his hands out awkwardly to keep from smearing red across his casual clothes. "I mean the ones I sell. Okay, same time. One- two- three!"

...

~ "Away out yonder I see a star, Silvery star with a tinkling song; To the soft dew falling I hear it calling, Calling and tinkling the night along." ~

...

The next day, she felt sick all morning and afternoon.

She spent most of it alternating between the bed and the bathroom, a violent bout of morning sickness she thought she'd overcome. Gaara compromised and took half the day off, coming back after noon to sit in the bed with her and help hold her hair away if she did throw up.

Mai wandered in at lunchtime to see if everything was okay. Fumiko sent her back out immediately with instructions to put her handprints on the nursery wall and to get both Temari and Kankuro to do the same, since she knew they were all probably in the kitchen. Gaara had shrugged at her questioning look, Fumiko pointing with her entirely blue hand.

Fumiko was going to have to get Lee and Neji to do the same the next time they were here, she decided. They were godparents, after all.

Before Gaara got there, paid servants and maids that liked her well enough brought her breakfast and lunch, making as much small talk as they could before her green face sent them away for stomach medications or simply for cleaning supplies.

After Gaara finally got off work, they still came by every now and then to make sure she was still okay. Eventually even Temari and Kankuro passed through once or twice, mostly to ask why the hell Mai was telling them to leave handprints on the nursery room wall.

It was a relief when, finally, her stomach settled down enough for her to lay back and just be ready to sleep. Gaara held her, but warily, closer to the edge of the bed than usual, just in case.

"Feel better in the morning," Gaara murmured into her hair as she sighed.

Fumiko managed a weak laugh. "I'll try. Get some sleep. Don't let me wake you up."

She felt his lips quirk. "I'll try."

Then she slipped into the Technicolor world of a lighted festival, air dark with stars and lanterns, night full of happy noises, the taste of cotton candy lingering in the back of her throat.

...

~ The voices stopped, and after a few moments the door creaked softly open. Fumiko was quieting, eyes drooping sleepily, brown irises winking open and closed. He watched, quiet, as she sang to their child. ~

...

Not many things could wake her from a dead sleep, dreaming or no. Not roof-hopping, not voices, not shaking. Maybe water could, or pain, but Gaara had never really let anyone try that, so she wouldn't know.

Fumiko had slept through sandstorms and thunderstorms and assassination attempts and being dragged through forests and falling off walls. The list of things, aside from time, that could jolt her awake was extremely short.

Well, she thought as her eyes flew open hand tapping furiously at Gaara's arm even before she woke up enough for her voice to work, as it turned out, there was a new addition to that short, short list.

Gaara sat up, nearly rolling fluidly all the way off thinking there was danger, but then he looked at her and his eyes were wide, and her eyes were wide, and the bed was a little wet.

"Gaara, hospital," she said.

"What? What-"

"Gaara, my water just broke!"

...

~ "But sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings, Little blue pigeon with mournful eyes; Am I not singing?" Fumiko was already asleep now, but she finished the final verse. "See, I am swinging, Swinging the nest where my darling lies. ~

...


	19. Blue

...

~ "Mommy. Mommy, can I hold her, please?" ~

...

"Gaara, calm down!" The cry was sharp and cut off. Every word she spoke was an exclamation point with growing pain. He clamped down on his running mouth instantly, and she managed a quick, near vibrating smile.

At the foot of the bed, two doctors and a nurse swarmed like so many bees, feeling at her stomach and calling out dilations at random intervals- not that that really meant anything to him, and if it did to Fumiko she wasn't saying.

Already she'd been whirlwind changed into a green hospital gown and brought into a room in the maternity ward. With all the noise they'd made getting out of the house Temari and Kankuro had blearily stumbled out of their bedrooms to an admittedly rushed and completely inadequate explanation that they'd figured out easily enough and followed close on his sand suspension's tail.

They were already here, and he'd managed to talk to them in the brief few minutes before he'd been called away to the maternity ward. Temari's only parting advice was to make certain to glove his fingers in sand before they told him to hold hers. Kankuro had nothing, really, to say, still drowsy and half-stumbling, muttering a few 'good lucks'.

Gaara hadn't really paid attention to or read any of the things he'd been sent, given or told about about the labor part of this. Strange, considering how much he'd thought about it, thought about this very thing happening, something going wrong, something.

But in any case, there was no going back. Her water had already broken, she was already in something they were calling 'active labor'. As it turned out, she'd probably slept through the entire set of earlier contractions that would've warned her to come sooner and try to delay the labor itself. He wasn't really surprised, but that did nothing to alleviate his anxiety.

He didn't really know whether it was to calm him down or distract herself from whatever pain was making her flinch and pant and sweat, but she continued to repeat over and over that it was normal, everything was normal, this is what's happening, Gaara, if I scream don't attack anything that's completely normal-

And she did, every now and then, but she mostly seemed to just shudder and bite holes in her lips, which he tried in vain to make her stop doing. Every three or four minutes, it seemed, she locked up, writhed, sometimes gasped or yelped.

"Cervix dilation almost at six centimeters," the nurse informed him.

"Almost." Fumiko huffed. "Another- hour, two."

This had already been going on for an hour or two. Everyone kept on telling him to be comforting as her 'support person' but unfortunately it kind of seemed to be the other way around- as hard as he tried he usually ended up stuttering or interrupting his own soothing words with choppy questions and she always seemed to be the one to smile- it was a grimace and a smile, but still a smile- and reassure him.

Either way by the time needles came out his nerves were shot, but Fumiko insisted that it was just the pain medication and ow, Gaara, my hand, my- gah!- uf, Gaara, it's fine...

As much as his grip tightened, every one of those three or four minutes between contractions, he was fairly certain she nearly cracked the thin layer of sand over his palm, her entire body locking and coiling in her red-faced, breathless seconds trying not to screech. Her hair was everywhere, spread about her head in halos and wild curls.

"How much longer?" He found himself asking the nurse as she wiped over the injection sites with sponges before moving up towards her face. He didn't really recall how long it'd been since she told him hours, it was passing with a one at a time mentality.

"No way to be sure, Kazekage-sama," the nurse said kindly. "She hasn't gone into the third stage, so all we can do is wait for the cervix to finish dilating. I wouldn't worry too much." She nodded towards Fumiko's smiling, red face, jaw muscles clenched. The smile stretched into a wreaked grin that only served to kill his nerves because was she supposed to be in this much pain? "Your Lady's a tough one."

"Ha," she forced out.

"It's okay to yell if you want to," Gaara muttered. "I'm fine."

"It d-doesn't really- hurt that bad, Gaaaahh!" Her fingers tightened again. Guessing from the force compared to impacts he'd felt against it, Gaara was pretty sure that if he hadn't taken his sister's advice she might very well have broken at the very least one of his fingers. "Ah! Sugar! Ow!"

"You're a horrible liar."

Eight contractions and forty minutes later the nurse announced, "Seven centimeters. You're doing great, Fumiko-sama."

...

~ "Fumiko-" ~

 

...

See, see, our honored hostess! The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you How you shall bid God 'ild us for your pains, And thank us for your trouble.

"I hate this guy," Mai remarked. "He's an asshole. 'Oh, you should thank me for the trouble I'm causing you by being here. It's because I love you! By the way, you're all nuisances, but I guess I'll deal with that.'"

Cat mewled from his spot on her stomach. She lowered the book a little bit to roll her eyes at him as he tried to knead her into paying him more attention, but reached out and scratched the top of his head anyway. One ear went down and the animal tilted into the touch.

Mai glanced back down at the book she'd read at this point at least twenty or thirty times, flipping the well-thumbed page. "'Listen to this- Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in compt, To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Still to return your own.'"

"Merr."

"I don't know what's worse, him or all these groveling losers."

"Mew."

She pet him again absently, lips pursing as her eyes skimmed over the familiar words. She'd even memorized bits and pieces of it. Unfortunately every once in a while she spouted it accidentally, but at least now she actually understood a majority of what was being said without too much of a headache. And here and there, there were penned notes in the margins, thoughts and questions that she drank up and kept.

She was propped up against an unmade pile of blankets and a few firm pillows shoved up against the wall at the head of her bed so she could half sit up. But she was slouched enough that Cat felt perfectly comfortable curling up on her abdomen, stretched so that his back feet were at her thighs and his front paws nearly to her boobs.

Mai read for a few moments more, screening at the new chakra halfheartedly at the front door, tongue poking out between her lips. It was perfectly quiet, no real noises aside from the loud creak of their front door, the occasional word from her parents prior to the new arrival.

To plague th' inventor: this even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips. He's here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself...

Her eyes jerked up as her mother's chakra instantly distressed, flaring up with something like surprise and agitation she couldn't place, and then, chakra aside, she could hear her mother's footsteps pounding against the hard floors towards her room, hear a few loud daggered words tossed between both of her guardians- Hush! No! Just stay here, then!

The door to her bedroom slammed open. It was almost midnight, but her mother said nothing about her reading in the dark or still being up without even changing into her nightclothes, just gave her a cursory glance-over and nodded.

"Mom, what the hell?" Mai slapped the book shut with one hand and shoved it under Cat's stomach before she could read the title. Cat mewled indignantly but otherwise didn't complain. "What-"

"Grab one of those overnight bags you always keep made up," Mitsuwa Hanako said finally. "We're going to the hospital."

"What? Why?" She sat up, dislodging Cat onto the blankets. His tail swished but he just made a few grumbly noises and settled down into the corner of a comforter. Sereito slipped between her legs to the bed. "Who was that at the door?"

"A messenger," she said. "And your sister just went into premature labor."

"... What?!"

...

~ "Pretty please?" Fumiko insisted. Her tiny fingers gripped the sheets of her mother and father's bed, and she stared intently at her mother with the biggest, bestest eyes she could manage. "Pleeeaase?" ~

...

"Push, Lady-!"

"I'm- pushing!" she snapped, mood whirling three sixties every few minutes. "Stop! Saying- Gyaagh!"

"Almost there on your firstborn," the harried nurse promised. Gaara was steadfastly ignoring the other end of the bed, at the very least not looking at it for very long between snapping glances. "Talk to her. Keep her calm."

"Talk to-" But already the woman's attention had turned, and she started pushing lightly at Fumiko's stomach, one hand bracing her raised knee.

"Push, my Lady, good, again, push-"

"I am!"

"Uhm." Not often in his life did he make that sound, but now he really had no idea what to say, eyes wide. He couldn't have gone anywhere if he wanted to, because he refused, yes, but also because at this point her grip never loosened at all, and she'd abandoned her quiet-ish muffles. "Hey, it's fine, you're okay, they're, uh, saying it's fine so-"

"Oh, for crying out-" Fumiko jerked, seemed to hesitate in a nearly upright position. Her stump leg slipped off the soft foam mount like a square pillow the doctors had used to keep her bent legs even; they put it back up gently as soon as she fell back against the pillows again. The push-push-push was a background noise for her. "Hah- hah- I know what's- ahh!"

At the exact moment that he heard the first piercing wail, Gaara realized in his flushed fervor that they had never even discussed let alone decided on names of any kind. They'd thought, of course, that they would have more time.

The child the doctor lifted for him to see was incredibly small, bright red, and looked a little wrinkly. The red was both skin and blood that was quickly wiped off with a little blue blanket. Quickly the man passed him off to the nurse who, before Gaara could find the breath to protest at the rush, brought the child around the bed, umbilical cord still attached, to Fumiko, who immediately brightened, peevish stressed out expression instantly clearing.

"Baby!" she squealed, and started to reach out for the infant, but then she grimaced again.

"Lord Kazekage," the nurse said, holding out the little smeary bundle at him, which, more out of shock than actual rational thought, he took without a word. Right away she started to work as Fumiko started screaming again, clamping both ends of the thin cord with little plastic pincers, the first right up barely an inch away from the infant's stomach.

The child continued to scream, and Gaara blinked at him distractedly, attention frayed in a few different direction. But then he noticed little things that jumped out at him for strange reasons; his hair, which Gaara had mistaken for blood, was red like his, and his little scrunched up face, and...

He rocked back on his heels, stunned.

I'm a father.

"Sir," a voice piped behind him, and Gaara flinched. Another nurse, a midwife maybe, was holding a pen expectantly above a folder. "What's his name?"

"Fumi-"

"Just- pick one- I can't- I- agh!"

Another sharp cry filled the little room, the second in a matter of minutes.

Second... first.

"Hajime," he said suddenly. "Use both surnames."

"Hahh- hah- Beginning," Fumiko said, grinning again, body shivering. She'd let go of his hand to let him hold the firstborn. Now their second son was being cleaned off and brought over. "Nice. I... Me- my- let me see him," she called out to the nurse, who brought the youngest for her to hold, propped up against her knee. The midwife hovered close just in case, but Fumiko was enthralled.

Both infants continued to squall.

"Sir-"

"Hiroki," Fumiko cut in. "Mitsuwa-Fuma Hiroki."

"Lord Kazekage, do you want to cut the umbilical cords?" the doctor who'd delivered both twins started to ask, holding out a pair of medical scissors, and Gaara nearly tripped over himself to get away from it, stumbling closer to the bed.

"No," he said when he finally steadied, calmly, although at this point it was a little late for appearances.

The cords were cut, the babies further cleaned as they waited for Fumiko to deliver the placenta, which seemed to be much less labor intensive than the twins themselves, as she shifted to a playful little smile, talking to both twins with a tearful, happy exuberance, reaching up weakly for Hajime and gently touching Hiroki. "My boys," she kept saying, "Gaara, look, our boys, they're so pretty!"

Gaara could only nod, deaf to the harshness of their cries.

"Hajime, Hiroki," the midwife with the folder called out, smiling. "Nine minutes apart, born August Fourth. Congratulations."

...

~ Her mother finally laughed, patting the spot beside her where she laid propped up on pillows. ~

...

Mai was used to pulling all-nighters, but that was with stimuli.

This sitting in a waiting room in a little plastic chair with nothing to do but tap her knees was not working for her.

Her mother sat to her right, yawning and occasionally dropping off against the wall, along with a by now perfectly alert Temari and Kankuro. Of course her father wasn't here, and quite honestly she was relieved by that.

At this point it was three or four am the next morning. There wasn't any natural sunlight yet, but there was a perfectly acceptable if not slightly overmuch amount of flickering white fluorescent lighting. She could've at least brought her book, but she didn't really want anyone asking how in hell she was literate enough to read Sereito.

"Relatives of Mitsuwa Fumiko and Kazekage Gaara?" she heard and she was up, rolling and fluid like gelled water, followed quickly by Kankuro, her mother, and Temari.

She didn't really even register the medic-nin's face as he led them through the hall to a closed door, chattering about how everything had been a success and that for premature babies the twins were actually really healthy, how they would have to stay in the hospital for maybe possibly a few weeks for chakra therapy along with their mother, who was exhausted and sleeping, by the way, try not to wake her.

And finally they reached the door, 5-26-B, fifth floor door number twenty-six in the B section, the Maternity ward, he opened it. Before he did, Mai glanced at it, took in the silver numbering plaque by the door, noticed the plain white of the slider, paint chipped, dust filtering the ground beneath it that disturbed when he pushed it open, clipboard raised like a circus master- ta-da!

She could hear what sounded like winding down wailing and winced, lips drawing up. Before she could get all the way in the door Temari was in, eager to see her godchild, and again before she could push through, her mother squeezed past, just as ready to see her first grandchildren.

Finally she made it in. Fumiko's breaths were even, steady. She was sleeping, knocked out by exhaustion or pain or drugs or a combination of the three, and there was Gaara, red in the face and the hair and the arms and in the everything, mouth twitched into a soft, permanent smile that didn't look ecstatic to the naked eye, one that didn't flicker away, one that wasn't aimed at her sister. Bewildered, happy.

In his arms, half in and half out with a nurse holding one whole and one half of a child, were the twins, pink looking and wrapped in probably three or four blankets each. Why? Something to do with being born so goddamn early, probably.

Her mother squealed and nearly pounced in her haste to get to Gaara, her sleeping daughter, her almost-quiet grandkids as they quieted in their father's arms, their father whose eyes looked about ready to literally explode from something her Facial Analysis class hadn't taught her, not adoring or surprised or confused or overjoyed, something in the median.

While Mitsuwa Hanako fawned and touched the boys, talking in high-pitched undertones to Gaara's murmurs, Mai studied the room on instinct- two windows, big, they looked fragile but probably weren't with sandstorm reinforcement- the lock was up on the right one and down on the left. Door, equipment closet to her left blocked by a few lightweight doctors she could easily shove through, and a window.

The light was bright, not dim like the rest of this stupid hospital.

Temari made a sound crossed between a scream and a cough, and when Mai blinked, neck swiveling to see what was going on, she realized the eldest of the Sand Siblings had a child in her arms. The child was starting to snuffle but she didn't seem to really mind, cooing and prodding lightly at the blankets with her fingers.

"He looks just like you, Gaara," she exclaimed. "Don't you? Just like your daddy. Oh!" She laughed, a pleasant, happy little startled sound. "His eyes are brown! And he has pupils!" She laughed again, swinging slightly to her left so Kankuro, leaning over her shoulder, could see. "But no eyebrows, eh?"

Gaara, still with twin number two tight in his arms but looking more and more like he was going to give in and let her mother hold him, wasn't quite fidgeting, exactly, and he didn't smile again because he still had on that nervous little soft smile.

"Fumiko's eyes," he agreed, and then his head turned without the follow-up of his body to look at the still unconscious- sleeping?- girl on the bed. His arms were moving, and for a second Mai really didn't know why until she realized he was bouncing the child in his arms, not quite conscious enough of the motion to rock.

When had he ever known how to handle kids? As far as she knew aside from the few ten and up year olds who pulled him over on the street, Gaara had absolutely zero experience with kids since hanging out with her when she was nine.

Finally he seemed to relent, tongue flickering out of his mouth for a moment to lick his lips before handing what had to be the youngest- because Temari was supposed to be the eldest's Godmother and not the smallest- to her mother.

Mai wasn't sure what to think, really, when Gaara offered his youngest, Hiroki, for her to hold.

She blinked, once; frowned, then jabbed a thumb at her chest.

He nodded, smiled, face still flushed with something close enough described as excitement. And so Mai took him, carefully, not really sure the difference between a baby and a weapon. It was awkward. Different than holding a wiggling toddler, for sure.

"This one is- he's..."

"Hiroki," Gaara supplied. Abundant joy and strength. "Your Godson, Mai."

He was... not cute. Not even close. Kind of icky and ugly looking, actually. There was some kind of fuzz all over his body, almost like a layer of clearish-maybe-white fur, and his skin was so pink it almost looked red or maybe purple. Under the blanket, Mai knew enough about childbirth- from Fumiko's many muttered studies of pregnancy books- that there would still be the little stub of umbilical cord on his stomach.

But with the fuzz was little tufts of red hair, darker than Gaara's without the incessant sun bleach. The baby blinked at her like he was confused, and she saw his round brown doe-eyes, and Gaara's nose, and ears and facial structure. The only piece of Fumiko Mai could see at all were the irises, the pupils, the shape of the eyes. The kid didn't even have eyebrows, eyelids thick with black.

"You should take him back," she found herself saying. Rather than hold the child out for Gaara to take she held him closer to her chest for fear of- dropping him, breaking him, hurting him. "This- this is a bad idea-"

"You're fine," her mother admonished, then smiled.

Gaara nodded, still smiling in a now slightly reassuring way, though his fingers drifted like he wanted his son back. "I was the same way. Don't worry."

"... Right." Mai grimaced, then looked back at the gaki, who looked right back at her, surprisingly aware. Maybe she just wasn't used to newborns, and that was normal?

The blue blanket fell a bit from the baby's shoulder; she fixed it on impulse. Kami, but he was so small, was it really okay that she was holding him? She could break him like fine china. His feet were barely the width of her thumb, head smaller than her palm. Twenty four weeks, she reminded herself. Almost considered unviable.

But Hajime and Hiroki both were healthy, for preemies, anyway. At least that's what everyone kept telling her. And, sheesh, their lungs were developed alright, no matter what anyone said, they could scream like the devil on fire when they weren't being held by someone who wasn't a doctor or Temari or Kankuro.

This was... her Godson. Mitsuwa-Fuma Hiroki, smaller than a basketball, covered in fuzz and looking like Gaara with Fumiko's eyes, was her Godson.

This kid had already been through hell and back- or, well, through the afterlife and back, at least, she doubted highly that such a small thing would ever get that far down. And it probably wasn't that great to pop out of the only place you'd ever known almost four months early.

But she supposed that was their fault.

"Do you see him, Mai?" Gaara said and his voice was about as drippy and lost as she'd ever heard it as Hiroki gurgled, blanket falling off to the side again as he struggled to raise an arm. She poked his little hand, transfixed, and he grabbed at the dirty, calloused skin of her pointer finger, grabby paw barely big enough to wrap around it. "See?"

"Yeah, Gaara," she said, and her voice squeaked, much to her dismay. She cleared her throat, but it felt tight and burning. There were no tears, really, just that burning in her throat like she couldn't, or wouldn't, speak. "Yeah, I see him."

"Gaara," came a soft voice, feathery with medication. Fumiko, waking up, head moving back and forth sleepily. "Hey, uh..."

Gaara retreated to the bed, hovering beside it, picking her sister's hand up off her stomach and holding it reverently, dipping his not-quite-tall for down to smile at her with the same smile, for once, that he smiled at everyone else.

Fumiko giggled, not quite spacey. "... Where...?"

"Hajime's with Temari and Kankuro. Hiroki's with Mai." he said quickly, eyes darting up and to both parties just to make sure before flickering back.

"Oh... good."

Mai, still feeling awkward and unsure of her grip, how tight it should be, how lose, if she was even holding the gaki right; though she was sure someone would have corrected her already if she wasn't, namely her mother, who hovered nearby with a face-splitting grin as she watched her daughter hold her grandson.

...

~ Fumiko grinned and scrambled next to her kaa-chan, then peeked over her arms at the little bundle of baby in her arms, it's nose scrunched in displeasure. There were wisps of black on her head, and her little fists waved. She knew from experience that the grabby baby would hold onto her fingers and not let go. ~

...

It was a while- Fumiko really wasn't sure how long exactly, the painkillers had only just worn off and her vision was back to normal- before they let her up and about to take a bath, to change into a different hospital gown.

She was staying the night, technically. But, of course, she and Gaara both would be here for the rest of however long the amount of time was before they could take the twins home- her boys, Hajime and Hiroki, looking so much like Gaara that for once she didn't mind never having seen baby pictures of her friend, if anyone had even bothered to take them.

And then they opened their eyes, squinty and ruffled or confused or just curious, and they were her eyes, shadowed bright brown like milk chocolate. There was no word that could describe how happy she'd felt- still felt- that their eyes were brown, that there was a piece of her in these little people, little people that would grow up and be individuals.

Her babies were small and they were reddish-pink and the lenugo was only just coming off after their second real bath. They wriggled and whined and made little noises of discontent and, subsequently, contentment, and they looked right at her and right at Gaara and responded to their voices.

The bath felt good. As happy as she was, birth was really really painful, more so than she had expected despite the premature birth, and there really was no way around that. And her chest hurt a little bit, too, for lack of breastfeeding, the doctors said, and that she already knew.

Gaara was with the twins still, in the little viewing room, watching carefully as the doctors ran tests and drew blood and wrapped in a million blankets because they had no real warm baby fat.

She'd been told (and relieved to hear) after the first few health screens and chakra scans, before she even passed out, as they tried to see if she could breastfeed already- barely- that for preemies, and for such small, early preemies at that- twenty four weeks- that they were healthy and mostly developed save for their lungs, which were stable for now and they would fix with chakra therapies and time.

She wouldn't claim to be entirely without fear, though. Premature children were usually fine after, say, week thirty or so, but at twenty four weeks they were so small and extremely fragile and chances of having long term effects were so huge. Gaara had been born at twenty three weeks, even earlier, but he'd had Shukaku's vitality...

No. Everyone was saying they would be fine, and she was sure they would be fine. It wasn't like she didn't know how to prompt cell growth with medical ninjutsu. She could help.

Fumiko thought about Mai, Gaara helping her sit up enough to see her younger sister, swathed in an uneasy, uncertain, completely awkward air as she held Hiroki, her Godson and also her nephew, arms tense like she wasn't sure whether to hold the child closer or father from her body, but she'd looked- charmed, in a shinobi kind of way, softer.

Temari, as well, and Kankuro, had been the opposite of stoic, cooing and talking lightly to the twins, both of them, Temari bouncing Hajime as lightly as the doctors let her dare, Kankuro laughing as he grabbed at his fingers.

And Gaara, of course, Gaara, Gaara with stars in his eyes, at first terrified like he would drop their sons and break them like so many dinner plates, eyes wide, but then relaxing, smiling, beaming in his own special way, soft and disbelieving and a lighter shade of delight.

Finally she sighed, mostly happily, and pushed upwards to unplug the hospital bathroom's drain, wincing as she did so. Everything hurt. That was fine. She needed to get back anyway, see how the twins were doing. She bit her lip, standing, squeezing out her hair before reaching for a towel.

It was going to be a long few weeks.

...

~ Her new little sister. Mai. It was easy to remember. ~

...

The first week was a whirlwind of paperwork and doctors and nurses and exercises to help her recover.

The twins, from the very beginning, did not hesitate to let everyone know that if it wasn't mommy, daddy, Mai, Kankuro, and sometimes Temari, then they didn't like you and didn't want to be held. That, or they were just screaming all the time and could only be soothed by a certain few.

So they were there for every procedure, even Gaara, who took off work and left Baki handling it, with the outspoken attitude that anyone who would rather him work should know that it was in their best interest to not step foot in the hospital unless gravely injured. Procedures ranged anywhere from brief stints attached to respirators to unclogging lungs to scanning brains and lungs and major organs.

As much as they'd been worried about her chakra, a few personnel, and herself after an extent, actually believed that it might well have rescued them. Nobody was sure for certain what had caused such an early preterm labor, but the near overstimulation of chakra, healing and energizing on it's own inside the body, had further developed their little bodies than had been expected.

For instance, unlike most children born at twenty four weeks, they could breathe outside of a respirator. That was only when medic-nin needed to continue to stimulate the cells in their little, almost finished lungs into growing and multiplying and developing. Further inspection of their brains had showed practically total completion, give or take a bit of the bulk, which would fix itself given time, but the neurons and the complicated parts were alive.

Fumiko couldn't help with those things as much as she wanted to because since she was technically on bed rest, she wasn't allowed to use chakra or really do much of anything but trail after and hold her twins.

Gaara was suspicious of every procedure, asking and asking and asking about the process and the effect and the need for it. Fumiko herself usually ended up answering most of these questions, save for a few that she didn't know; she'd never really dealt with infants at all really, let alone premature ones.

It was adorable, seeing the edge in his eyes, the worry. And it was adorable to watch him hold either or both of the twins, all nervous and new and careful; Mai without the uncomfortable, awkward fear that she would drop one.

Hiroki seemed the most irritated by all the noises and colors. Unlike his brother, who only really ever complained when there was no familiar anyone at least nearby or if something was physically uncomfortable, Hiroki didn't really seem to want to be handled by anyone or undergo anything. Hajime, the oldest by thirteen minutes, was quieter, more observant, although just as misleadingly loud as his twin.

She couldn't be happier about it.

"They're gonna have so much to say, Gaara," she told him once as they watched Hiroki screaming his growing little lungs out when they tried to move him away from his twin, and they hurriedly propped him back into the blanket. "Talkers, both of them."

"How can you tell?" Gaara was holding her, not really far from the doctors, a requested two or three yards away in a couple of chairs, one arm draped over both her shoulders. Though she supposed draped wasn't the right word at all- he wasn't relaxed in the slightest.

"How do you think?" She giggled. "As soon as they learn words they'll be off and running."

"I thought all infants made this much noise?"

"They do, but I just know. Yanno, as the mother." She grinned at his skeptical expression, head tilted down above hers, not quite against it. "Kami, the mother. This is going to be fantastic!"

Her excited squeal attracted the distracted eye of one of the nurses, but she dismissed it with another grin.

Something flashed in Gaara's eyes, and his lips flexed. He said, "Yes," and she knew- she wasn't an idiot, she knew- that he was avoiding the topic to ruin all others, avoiding the fear, avoiding voicing anything to pop this bubble.

The war.

...

~ As soon as she was settled, her mother placed the disgruntled infant down on her lap for her to hold onto, head braced against her chest. ~

...

It wasn't long before they were asking her to pump because considering the first few mostly unsuccessful attempts at breastfeeding it was clear that they weren't quite ready to feed properly.

That was easy enough, considering that it was making her chest hurt and she was staining her shirts so she went with it, then watched when they fed the twins through a feeding tube because they didn't really seem to know how to suckle on anything yet.

She did it every single day, eight or nine times within any given twenty four hours, which was a little ridiculous sometimes because she would be in the middle of something and a nurse would come by and bring her away. But that was definitely completely okay, because she was providing. She was a mother.

It was a little uncomfortable though, and definitely kind of awkward. It felt weird.

Gaara just turned bright red whenever she talked about it, so she just laughed at him and waved whenever they came by. Oftentimes, they didn't understand why he wouldn't come with, and nobody ever believed her when she said Gaara's just shy. But the nurses did what they always did, shrugging and not really wanting to ask the Kazekage himself.

Speaking of Gaara, aside from those short half hours he wasn't really ever more than an arm's length away. At the current moment, they watched the twins feeding, actually right in front of them so Fumiko could touch their faces and their wiggly little arms and legs.

She was perfectly allowed to touch her babies because she'd already washed her hands twice to prevent infection and it was already established that the twins weren't he only ones to make noise when separated from their parents for very long. Hajime was starting to whine and gurgle anyway, which, she knew, would set off Hiroki.

Gaara followed suite, soothing Hiroki like he'd done it a million times, because they seemed to really like their father, already recognized him much to her friend's amazement. Fumiko knew that babies tended to recognize the voices and general blurry first images of their parents but really, Hajime and Hiroki could almost sense them it seemed like, they only needed to be close...

"Hi, baby." she said with a grin to Hajime. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the nurse at the wall come off it at Hajime's fussing, probably to take away the tube and cumbersome tape. "Hi."

...

~ She beamed at her father, who laughed and took a picture on the beat up little green disposable camera he hadn't let go of since her mommy had come home from the hospital with little baby Mai. ~

...

Fumiko liked kangarooing.

It was the official term for holding your preemie babies.

She got to tuck them into her shirt- her actual shirt, Mai had brought some of her maternity clothes over. They were a little big now, but not by as much as she would have expected, so it worked well for situations like this anyway- and just touch them and be physical and say cute soft little things, holding them against her chest.

Supposedly it helped to strengthen the bond of a parent and child through prolonged skin contact. It also helped them get used to the white noise that was chakra, even if they could barely feel it, if they could at all. Fumiko didn't know about all that, necessarily, but she did like to be able to be expected to hold the twins and nobody would come by for a test or a feeding or chakra therapy.

Gaara, rubbing slightly at his eye- he was wilting, she could tell, neither of them had really slept in the last week or two unless you counted her passing out for an hour- gave a tired smile. It was the kind of tired, exhausted twist of lips that made you just know the smiler didn't want to go to sleep at all.

"You look happy," he said.

"I am happy," she said, beaming. Hajime made a little mewling grunt and Hiroki answered; they were pressed against each other like they were cuddling. Their little bodies were warm under her shirt collar, sharing heat with themselves and her. "Ooh, baby, baby," she sang, touching her fingers to their tiny red heads. Their hair was sparse and soft and fluffy like a duck's down.

Technically she was lying in a hospital bed using a room, but it was more of a waiting-overnight room that wasn't being used, just so she could lie down and be monitored by the occasional nurse or doctor's pop-in.

She felt more tired than she ever had before, save perhaps for maybe that one time she died, but other than that, she was bone-dead tired. It felt like she could go into a coma for a few weeks. Her muscles were tired. Her joints were tired. Her body, and her mind, were exhausted. Fumiko was sure that her circles were deeper and more pitch than they'd been in a long time.

But they were so warm. Warm and happy and healthy and hers, and Gaara's.

She blinked at Gaara's fingers and then his hand and wrist as they entered her field of view. His fingertips hesitated just beyond Hiroki's little wiggling hand. Fumiko glanced over at him, still saw the pause in the lines of his face. It was like he wasn't sure if anything was really happening, like he was fighting a Genjutsu specialist and wasn't sure if his victory was real or fake or still in process.

She let her own fingers trail from their heads to the little bumps in her shirt that were their bottoms to give him room to hesitate, and then to seem to shake it off and keep reaching. He touched the preemie, impossibly small hand. Hiroki immediately responded, grabby and almost flailing until he managed to grip the joint of Gaara's ring finger. His fingers couldn't even reach all the way around.

Fumiko wasn't sure how exactly she was keeping her identical boys straight, but even Gaara was doing the same. Ignoring completely the little green-yellow bruise colored wristbands with their names and genders and the date of their birth, August Fourth, with no real way to tell the differences between them besides their near nonexistent personalities.

Whatever it was, it was working. Quick cursory glances at their wrists whenever she said or thought their names proved her and Gaara right nearly every time.

Well, she was calling motherly instinct every twelve minutes anyway...

Hajime let out a little shuddering sigh. It wasn't like they moved around often except to kick or move their arms about, so it wasn't really like he had to drop his head when he fell asleep.

"Hey, Gaara."

"What?"

"D'you think they're gonna sleep like me?" She petted Hajime's head carefully. Hiroki was still hanging onto Gaara's finger like his life depended on it.

Gaara frowned, bewildered and distasteful, a sudden sharp contrast to the softened look he'd donned a half-second before. "Kami, I hope not."

...

~ "Look, daddy," she said. "Look, I'm a big sister now!" ~

...

They couldn't really sleep with the twins, not even in the same room. But they were kept close in one of many of the maternity ward's family overnight rooms. It was simple, three beds and a table, a thin couch. The beds were all uniform, white sheets and white pillows and thick yellow blankets to keep out the chills. Two straight lines ran from the front of the room to the back, which was dotted with an even four windows.

It was here that they collapsed, maybe not quite so tired as to not wish they could be closer to the boys, but still perfectly exhausted enough for Fumiko to lie down and just close her eyes and be entirely dead to the world.

Gaara stayed up perhaps a few minutes later, because he wasn't comfortable in the slightest sleeping in this unfamiliar place with it's unfamiliar sights and smells and chakra signatures. Actually, he'd been as tense as he was happy and, quite honestly, relieved for the last two- three? The days had blurred and smeared- weeks, without his gourd for the majority of the time under the caution of accidentally introducing infection to his two extremely vulnerable sons.

At the present moment it was leaned up against the wall, strategically halfway across the room between their bed- the center bed, not the closest to the windows nor the door- and the door itself. Few things would get through the sandstorm-proofed glass; perhaps an exploding tag or some kind of lightening or earth jutsu, but it was angled away from them, he would have plenty of time to bring his sand about the bed.

No, the biggest threat would be the door he wasn't allowed to lock.

Not that there would be a threat. But Gaara was tired and his nerves were strung on a wire, especially now that it wasn't just this one bed that he had to worry about, it was also the room at the end of the hall, and if he'd had any energy he might have opened a third eye but as it was he just grumbled in a way that was almost a growl and let his eyes flutter shut and then there was nothing.

...

~ "You certainly are," he agreed. "Mai likes you a lot." ~

...

Breakfast in the hospital cafeteria was loud and friendly and a little squishy, so Fumiko went for a salad in lieu of the suspicious looking fish sandwiches and baked ziti. That was a little squishy too, and she was pretty sure the grape tomatoes were a little too ripe, but it was fine.

She'd flagged down Ame on her break, who sat with them, mostly un-intimidated of the Kazekage by this point.

"I heard about your preterm," Ame said, picking apart her ziti absently with her fork without even looking at it. "The entire hospital staff is buzzing about it. Shoulda heard Dr. Daisuke going on and on about how he got to deliver the Kazekage's kids."

Gaara made a face, but said nothing over or under Fumiko's tomato-filled laugh. She almost coughed, and took a big gulp of water.

Finally she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I know," she said at last, still giggling. "Daisuke and a few of the nurses had me and Gaara fill out performance forms. You know, the 'random' ones?"

Ame laughed. "Yeah, the random ones."

Fumiko grinned. Gaara just shook his head and took another picky, thin bite of ziti. Ziti seemed to be the food of choice throughout the entire cafeteria if it wasn't the salad or even just a drink alone- nobody seemed to be touching the fish, which she stored away to a part of her brain just in case. She had woken up in the hospital often, after all.

"Anyway," her former student continued. "Have you started pumping yet? I know the births were really early."

"Yeah. Actually, suckling seems to be the only thing they can't do yet." She stabbed another lettuce leaf with her pink plastic fork. "Everyone's saying it's my crazy gates."

"I mean, it makes sense." Ame shrugged. "Chakra gives us energy and heals us, no matter how slowly. It all depends on the strength and the amount. With everything you were flooding them with, you probably super developed their coils, too."

"Oh," Fumiko yelped around a biteful of leaf. "I didn't even think about that!"

"Gaara-sama," Ame said suddenly, turning her head to glance over at him. "How are you doing? I saw Baki-sama at the market yesterday. He told me to ask after you, and to tell you that everything was under control at the Tower."

"You know Baki?" Fumiko asked, surprised.

"Had him once or twice for minor things in my rounds. He knows I know you, at least."

"If you see him again, give him my thanks." Now Gaara smiled, a thin, near shy looking thing that had Ame blinking, spine zapping straight. Un-intimidated though she was, very few outsiders were familiar with Gaara's smiles. "And, I'm doing well."

"Uh- go- good to hear," Ame stuttered, fork going from her mouth to her bowl. "Yes. Good."

Fumiko grinned, hiding her tiny snicker with the side of her hand and sliding a sideways glance at Gaara as Ame, for the first time since meeting him, blushed, pinkening from her neck to the tips of her ears. Gaara just sighed and went back to his ziti, completely disinterested once and for all from the rest of the conversation.

...

~ "Well, that's good, 'cuz I like Mai a lot too!" she exclaimed. "And she's going to stay with us for-ever, right, daddy?" ~

...

They got many visitors and even a few sleepovers in the family overnight rooms, from Mai and her teammates and her mother, Temari and Kankuro and a few randoms, even Shunichi appeared to say hi. There was no sign of Yoshiki- she hadn't even spoken to him, she realized during this time wondering where he was, since Gaara's death so many months before.

And, she would admit, it was a little... well, her father never showed up.

Her mother came all the time, cooing and holding and playing with the babies, helping her out when the twins finally learned to suckle, teaching Gaara how to feed and handle and swaddle when Fumiko herself was too tired or sometimes sleeping to help.

And she always said the same things- he's at work. He said he didn't feel well today. He said he would come tomorrow, but you know how he is, you know how he is, you know how he is...

Honestly she hadn't really been sure if she wanted him to come or not but... but come on.

Mai and Gaara both were of the very firm opinion that he shouldn't be allowed to step foot through the door, into the hallway, into the ward, the floor, the building. Actually, she wouldn't have been all that surprised if Gaara had told the front desk not to let him through. But she also knew that her father hadn't tried yet. Gaara would have told her. He would have at least done that.

At three and a half weeks they were saying maybe you can all go home soon, just a few more tests.

The twins were so healthy. So happy. So perfect.

Fumiko didn't usually think these things until she was alone, or at least until it was quiet, when she woke up in the family room and Gaara was sleeping, or when she saw another grandfather in the halls of the ward or through the glass wall of the observation area, or when the twins had fallen asleep kangarooing and there was no one else visiting, no doctors or nurses, just her and Gaara.

She was pretty sure Gaara could read her mind at this point, because sometimes he said happy things and sometimes he didn't.

At this point, she really, really hadn't ever expected him to come, hadn't expected anything, really. And she'd come to peace with it, even started to shrug it away, wholly contented to feed her boys or bounce them in her lap or let her fingers curl with Gaara's in the chairs or the beds or at the cafeteria tables.

And then, now, she was waking up and Gaara wasn't there.

She hadn't meant to fall asleep. She was draped out on the couch in the NICU room. The last thing she remembered was sitting next to the little cribs Hajime and Hiroki were sleeping in, on the chair, with Gaara right beside her talking quietly about their home to the babies and the nursery their mother had worked so hard on, the huge mass of clothes and diapers and bottles and toys they wouldn't grow into for a long while but the village loved them already, don't worry...

Gaara had thought she was asleep for a lot longer than she actually had been.

At some point, though, he had gotten up, and laid her on the couch, and...

Sitting up with a yawn, Fumiko paused when she heard voices, low but heated. Silently she swung her legs over the edge of the couch, shinobi sandal making no noise against the pristine, cracked white tile, and leaned to grab at her prosthetic. He hadn't even bothered to pull the sock off, he'd hurried.

As soon as she could stand she did, crossing the room to the two cribs holding her twins. They were never not wrapped in their blue blankets; as preemies they needed the extra heat like she'd needed a coat in Land-of-Iron. She picked up first Hajime, the closest, and then Hiroki, and held their sleepy bodies close, bouncing them lightly in each arm as she listened in to the angry words outside his door.

"... no right to... door."

"I have every right! It's my... grandchildren!"

"Keep your voice down." That much of Gaara's quiet rebuff was dangerously clear. "They're sleeping. You... home. I don't..."

"I will not... want to speak to her."

"Do you... good to say? At all? ... yell at her, you're not getting through this door."

Unlike Gaara's mild, softly defensive voice, even through the muffle of the door and the snuffling cries of some of the other children, her father's was gruff, irritable. Not necessarily angry or upset, just ruffled at Gaara's insistence, his protectiveness. It was like it hurt his pride that Gaara cared.

"Never plan to... my fault."

"Of course... never your fault." Gaara's tone at once shifted gears to a sardonic bite, something she didn't often hear. Gaara wasn't really a fan of sarcasm, especially given that unless it was heavy, a lot of times it went over his head.

"... through, Kazekage-sama."

There was a ring of silence and for a second she didn't know what would happen, if the door would open or close, Gaara trusting himself enough to make a decision while he thought she was sleeping, whether he would think it was a betrayal to make him leave or send him away, open the door or guard the handle.

"No." His voice was firm, and it was hard. A few steps closer to the door, twins in arms, revealed over the mild whine of her prosthetic the rest of his statement. "... near my family anymore."

Fumiko winced, waiting for the explosion, but nothing came.

Instead here was just the sharp squeal of someone's civilian sandal's heel on the tile and the squeaky, sliding shuffle of footsteps. Hajime hiccuped.

The door creaked, but it didn't open, door did the shadow under it move. She realized that Gaara had leaned back against the wood, slumped. He was tired, too. Arguably as tired as she was. Tired, stressed; his shinobi brain never rested, worried about work, worried about her, worried about them.

Eventually, the weight shifted, the door opened. Gaara stepped in and immedietly noticed her standing a few feet away, gently bobbing the twins in her arms, which were sore from much of the same.

"I'm sorry," he said. He looked nearly at attention, with his arms limp by his sides. "I couldn't."

"That's okay, Gaara," she said. "It's okay."

...

~ "She sure is." ~

...

"You know, we never got to pack an overnight bag," she said conversationally as she stuffed neatly folded shirts and pants and undergarments into the little duffel Mai had dug around the Tower's closets for back home for them. "Kinda jumped the kunai, huh?"

Gaara smiled, handing her over a few of the extra blankets the staff had given her. "I suppose you did."

Hajime and Hiroki were both sleeping peacefully in respective little temporary piles of pillows and blankets, wrapped tightly so they didn't wriggle around. Before they left she would wrap on and tuck them into the pouch-styled baby carriers the doctors had given her to use, a looped, thick scarf-like fabric that went over her shoulders crossbody-style.

It would hold Hajime and Hiroki both to her chest and protect them from the bite of the desert wind and sand, at least until they were accustomed enough to the world to get used to it. As it was it would be helpful because she could keep her hands free and just make it easier to hold them both; her arms were sore.

Not that it was really necessary. They only had two bags, one with her things and one with Gaara's, and Gaara could carry both easily in one hand. He couldn't throw them over his shoulder with his gourd, nor did, she knew, he feel comfortable having both hands in use at once out in the open. But still, it was nice, a light pale green.

They were finally going home. The paperwork was filled out, the final tests run, medical information and birth certificates given.

Mai was there with them, along with Shiragiku. Well, not with them, necessarily- they were waiting in the lobby. But still. Eishi, she had informed them, was with his family for some Sunday dinner thing that he couldn't get out of, which was really okay considering that they didn't need any help with anything.

Already they'd taken over all the other things, multiple iceboxes later they'd managed to get all the milk back to the fridge, or so they said, at least. When she got home, Fumiko would have to transfer it all to bottles- Kami knew they had enough of the things- and label them by weeks they could be used, put them in the fridge or the freezer depending on the date.

She still planned on feeding naturally rather than using formula, which honestly was just healthier for them, especially preemie as they were. But babies needed milk as often as every one or two hours- when they weren't sleeping they were eating. And besides, she wanted everyone else to be able to feed them too, Gaara and Mai and Temari. Kankuro probably wouldn't, but they would.

"I can't wait to sleep our own bed again," she said happily, tucking away a flyaway sleeve. "And to show you guys your room! Oh, I'm so glad we finished that so early."

"I wonder how my siblings will take to being between us and the nursery room," Gaara mused.

"Kankuro'll probably sleep right through it. I'm sure Temari will be thrilled! She's so good with them." Fumiko beamed. "And I can finish all my commissions finally! I have one more to finish and three to ship. And you," She grinned, "can get back to Kazekage-ing."

"I'm staying off for at least another week," he muttered, and she laughed at him, which woke up Hiroki.

The baby blinked, squirmed, expression nearly bewildered at his lack of locomotion. She reached to pick him up before he could wake his brother, swinging him into her arms with a giggle. "Awe. Did I wake you up? I'm sorry. Sorry! Sorry!"

She poked at the blanket under his chin to punctuate, then laughed again before pulling open her pouch and settling him inside, loosening the blankets enough with a few tugs of her fingers to give his little arms a bit more freedom. Hiroki settled immediately, gurgling contentedly.

Despite being nearly a month old, the twins were still tiny- barely a few points over one single pound, they had just a little over halved it, halfway to two. They were so light that she barely noticed the difference when she lifted sleeping Hajime as well and tucked him away into the pouch; the two of them combined weighed less than her medical pack, which was still at the Tower.

She glanced up to ask Gaara if he could please zipper up the second duffel, but she paused at the fragment of a shifting expression he tried quickly to hide, a wider smile than usual, eased, like his embarrassed looks without the blush.

"What?"

"What, what?"

Fumiko smiled, steadying the pouch with one arm, tucking a loose length of strands behind her ear. "You were looking at me."

"I look at you all the time," he pointed out and dropped his eyes down towards the bag to zip it closed, but his hair wasn't quite shaggy enough to hide the tint of his ears as they pinkened.

"You were looking at me different."

"No, I wasn't," he decided, then picked up both bags, twisting the straps around his wrist to get a better grip on them. "Come on. We should leave before another family comes in."

"Yes you were!" she protested as he veered about her and the corner of the bed to head towards the door. "Gaara!"

...

~ "Promise?" ~

...

"Okay," She conceded when finally they all six stumbled to the top of the stairs of the living quarters floor. "So maybe I did need your help, Mai."

Her sister made an excellent buffer, near snarling at the villagers and reporters- they were back to following her again- and anyone who swarmed closer to see inside the pouch. At one point Hiroki had started to scream at all the unfamiliar noise, which had set off Hajime in turn, which somehow only elicited more shouted questions and exclamations of surprise/happiness/good luck.

At this point, it was obvious that nobody really liked to cross her, whether for fear of injury or just the explosion of cursing and razor-wire insults that followed.

"Ugh, I wish they would just get a life," her sister exclaimed as they turned towards the bedrooms. Her footsteps quickened audibly and she pushed in between her and Gaara to peek around Fumiko's arm and into the pouch at the still fussy infants. "How are they?"

Fumiko just smiled. "They'll be fine once they eat."

"And you...?"

"Bottle," she said. "I just fed them like an hour ago."

"We can set them down in the nursery after they eat," Gaara said, perfectly used to Mai's shoving. She was between them often, the trio before the Sand Siblings had broken up, before Gaara had become Kazekage. They still were, but moments like this were few and far between.

"Yeah! I used a lot of brighter colors, so once their eyesight develops a bit more they should love it."

"What does that have to do with anything?

"They can see the contrasts easier," she explained.

Mai waved the explanation away with her hand like a few flies. "I'll go get the stuff. I put it in, I know what's the oldest."

She stopped dead, letting them all pass before veering off to the kitchen. Fumiko called out a thanks as Gaara drifted closer again, bags still in hand. They could just drop it in the nursery, it wasn't like they didn't have three times that many clothes in their closets already cleaned, and there was probably some on their beds that'd been washed while they were gone, unless those were what Mai had swiped.

Gaara cast her something of a questioning and slightly hopeful gaze, and she laughed. She'd been laughing more in the past month than she had in a while. "You can feed them if you want to."

"We both can," he said.

Fumiko flexed the muscles in her arms, still holding up the fabric. Hajime and Hiroki had mostly stopped sniffling at this point, but they both looked fairly disgruntled. "Look, they have their little angry faces," she cooed, grinning. "You guys are gonna have to get used to it. Daddy's really popular."

Gaara rolled his eyes as they approached the nursery door, but opened it and stepped away so she could cross inside, still grinning as she did so.

The room was as colorful as ever, but the paint smell had faded entirely, leaving behind just a lingering scent of lavender, the residue of a cleaning while they were at the hospital. They hadn't really left anything on the door to tell the maids not to clean here, but that was okay. Better, actually. The nursery would have to stay crazy sterile and clean to keep the boys from getting sick.

The crib was already made up, piled since it's placement with all of Neji's blankets and one or two of the stuffed animals, so she just picked away at the blankets' swaddled corners and edges until her boys were all unwrapped and lifted them up, making little happy noises before lowering them into the nest. The blankets were tucked around, smoothed, not bumpy or misshapen so they couldn't suffocate.

She could hear Gaara's shinobi-light footsteps as he walked up behind her on the soft, light brown carpet they'd rolled out. He didn't put his hands on her arms or his chin on her head, but he sidestepped, and instead leaned up against the crib beside her on his elbows, mirroring her own posture. He smiled tentatively at her, and she grinned back, nudging his arm with hers.

"Full-time now, daddy," she reminded him. "No more nurses feeding them whenever we're not there."

Inexplicably, he flushed, a thin smatter of strawberry under his eyes. "I... I'm alright with that."

"We'll see about that," came Mai's unexpected yet totally not surprising unimpressed response. Gaara blew out a sigh that puffed his cheeks, then smiled his small, secret smile again before drawing away to turn his head towards her.

"Did you heat it like the nurse said to?"

Mai sighed dramatically, one loose fist on her hip and one with two bottles tucked between her fingers. "Yes, Gaara, I heated the ones in the lower half of the fridge in a lukewarm water bath and shook 'em around. I also dried them with satin and monogrammed the nipples with their names."

"Sarcasm."

"Excellent observation there, Shorty-sama." She tossed one and Gaara caught it easily, still leaning one arm against the edge of the crib. His sleeves, dark maroon, seemed lighter against the dark wood grain.

Gaara handed it off to her, then caught the second without looking. "Thank you," he said pointedly, and Mai laughed.

"Yeah, well, good luck keeping up." Mai grinned. "I did a little reading up. You're both insomniacs, so you've already got a pretty decent head start, but every mother who cared to gossip in the waiting room gives their condolences."

...

~ "Promise," he said certainly, nodding with a serious air. ~

...

Temari's initial excitement hadn't exactly worn off, per se, but it definitely wasn't as shiny as it once had been.

As Godmother of their firstborn, of course she'd been looking forward to taking care of the baby, of both of the babies, the way she remembered her mother taking care of Kankuro and letting her help sometimes- bottle-feeding, rocking, changing.

She'd forgotten the sheer amount of noise that went along with it.

It was constant. Although they were quieter in their mother's arms, they weren't always there. Usually they were sleeping, but when they weren't sleeping they were hungry. And what was worse, both twins never seemed to want to nap at the same time, always waking up before the other or going to sleep at exactly the same time as the other woke up.

And it was a process. Everyone was involved; herself and Kankuro and Gaara and Mai and of course Fumiko, even sometimes people like Baki got a child shoved in their arms while the original holder ran off to take care of the other or pick up something from storage in the basement or get milk. It was exhausting. Happy, yes, of course, but also irritating.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if they only cried during the day. A lot of times they just wanted food or their mother or father, which sometimes could be difficult on the days Gaara was working, so usually it was a fairly easy fix. And anyway Fumiko usually took care of everything, the ultimate stay-home insomniac mother.

But when they yelled at two am...

She sat up on instinct, hands darting for her weapon, the kunai under her pillow, the fan at her bedside, her shoes with the metal heels. Noise in the Tower at night had always been minimal; nobody wanted to get on the bad side of the current Kazekage and his family or friends.

Eventually her muscles relaxed and she groaned, wiping at her face and groping for the lamp at her left.

It was very, very unfortunate that she was between Kankuro's room and the nursery. Sometimes her brother slept right through it, other times she could hear him stomping past her door or cursing from the other room, throwing pillows at the door, like that would help at all.

She stood, still barefooted and in her pajamas, padding to the door and swinging it open and swerving to walk up against the wall the few yards between her door and the babies'.

Swinging it open and taking a step inside, she realized first that the light was on, toes curling in the unfamiliar pattern of carpet. It really was brightly colored, primaries done in near neon.

"Easy, easy," Fumiko was saying, gently bouncing one of them- Hiroki, maybe? It was hard to tell- in her arms, spilling over with a purple blanket. The one month old continued to make his unholy wails, but Fumiko just kept on smiling, rocking lightly from side to side on the ball of her right foot. "What is it, baby? What? You're not hungry, not dirty... oh."

Now the other was starting to sniffle, which was a bad sign. Before Temari could say a word, Fumiko shifted the twin she held into one arm, then dipped her other hand into the crib, keeping a careful center of gravity for balance.

"Hey. See? It's okay. Look, look, I'll sing." She giggled. "Maybe it'll make you both sleepy. Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings, Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes; Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging, swinging the nest where her little one lies."

Temari blinked, rubbed at her eye again. She smiled tiredly as- she was pretty sure that was Hiroki, yeah- started to wind down his protests, although his still wheedled and moaned. She took another step into the room and as she did, Fumiko noticed her out of the corner of her eye. The brown-haired girl offered a quick, lopsided smile, but just kept on going.

"Away out yonder I see a star, Silvery star with a tinkling song." She moved to lay the child down again, fingers whisking around the blankets to keep them both warm. Now that she looked around, Temari noticed the still-full bottle on a stool nearby.

Where had Fumiko even learned that song, anyway? It was awfully positive for a lullaby. She hadn't really ever heard the girl sing before, and it wasn't really that good- off tune and too high. But in the hush of night her voice was soft, and it was pleasant at least, not good, but not horrible, just a friendly kind of tune.

"To the soft dew falling I hear it calling, calling and tinkling the night along... oh, he's sleeping." She tacked on in a whisper. "I really do think they might sleep like me." Now she straightened, turning her attention to Temari, who straightened as well, very aware of her weasel themed pink pajamas. "Good morning."

Fumiko herself was wearing one of Gaara's old- no, one of her sleepshirts, they weren't Gaara's anymore- longsleeved black shirt, and blue fluffy pants that were loose enough to drape over her prosthetic. She was shrinking back into her clothes, steadily but extremely slowly. Her hair was unbrushed but still mostly straight somehow.

"Hey," Temari yawned. "I heard them, but I guess you had it covered."

"Yeah." Fumiko glanced back into the crib, but didn't adjust anything, clasping her hands in front of her, smile still quirked up. "Thanks, though. Sorry if they woke you up."

"It's fine. I have stuff to do anyway." She squinted around, eyes already long since adjusted to the light. "Is Gaara working, or...?"

"Oh, I told him to go back to sleep, but I don't think he did." She flashed another, brighter, amused grin before it softened back into a smile. "I should probably get back. Can you turn off the light before it wakes them back up?"

Temari winced and turned off the light.

"See you in the- at breakfast," she automatically corrected.

"More like in a few hours," Fumiko laughed under her breath. She waved at the bottle. "I'm just gonna leave that there. One of them'll want it before the sun rises."

...

~ "Good," she said again resolutely. Mai cooed in her lap and she jumped before looking back down, smiling widely at the quiet little baby, who squinted back up at her with brown eyes just like her's and just like her daddy's. ~

...

"Hey, Hiroki lost his umbilical thing."

"Yeah, I noticed that this morning," Fumiko said, casting a quick smile over her shoulder at Mai, who was sitting indian style on a regular wooden chair with Hiroki in her arms, alternating glances between her and him. Her hold was still a little awkward and estranged, but she wouldn't drop him, and she knew to keep his head supported.

Gaara had Hajime close by in another chair, because the twins liked to be around each other. Fumiko couldn't really hold either, throwing together a vegetable rice pilaf with soy sauce for breakfast at the stove.

"He had it for a while."

Fumiko shrugged the best she could flipping rice in a pan. "He was preemie. Maybe that had something to do with it."

"Where's Temari?" Gaara wondered aloud. It was distracted, as he was wholly focused on feeding little Hajime from a bottle. His expression, Fumiko knew from experience, was almost overly concentrated. He might even have been biting his lip; it depended on how much the baby was moving around.

Later she would feed them herself, after Gaara had gone to work and Mai had gone to train and Temari and Kankuro respectively had left to do their jonin thing. But she still pumped for times like this, because sometimes she fed them and sometimes she didn't and sometimes it was two am and she was happy to use a bottle. She didn't even have to go to the hospital for it, she had her own, one that Shiragiku's mother had sent over with her wishes and cleaning instructions.

"She woke up with the twins, like, three times last nigh- this morning." She laughed. "She's probably still sleeping."

"Well, where's Kankuro?" Mai asked. "Usually he's first in line for breakfast unless Temari gets here first for her coffee. This feels weird. It's just us."

Fumiko carefully spilled out rice onto five different plates, already laid out and filled with glazed carrots and heated up leftover fish. She carried Mai and Gaara's out to them before going back for her own, snagging a peach at the same time- that little craving hadn't quite disappeared.

"Mm." Mai grinned at her as she sat down, chopsticks already between her teeth. She was pulled out from the table to hold Hiroki, but she still managed to eat just fine. "Too bad you don't have any teeth yet, gaki."

"Hey," came a familiar but extremely muttered voice. "Where's my coffee?"

"In the machine. I made extra."

"Thank you."

As she shuffled over to the bubbling coffee machine, Fumiko broke her chopsticks and ventured, "You can just stay in bed. Usually me or Gaara have it."

While going into labor certainly could wake her up, apparently screaming children could not. Lately she hadn't been sleeping nearly as much, let alone on a regular schedule; usually she and Gaara just stargazed or talked or played board games on the bed to keep from falling asleep because at any time, one or both twins would call.

Of course they still did sleep, though, one or two nights a week maybe, so every now and again Gaara had to take care of them alone because she just slept right on through the sounds. According to his siblings, instead of singing, he just walked around with them, going up to the higher levels to keep from disturbing people.

"Eh." She didn't really say anything to it, just waved her hand. "Where's Kankuro?"

"Probably still sleeping."

"Lazy ass." She rolled her eyes, and there was a sleepily indignant 'Hey!' from the door that Kankuro had just opened, scowling. Mai laughed with her this time, drowning out the middle sibling's complaints.

Gaara, across the table, just sighed and took a bite of pilaf, smiling around his chopsticks and looking down at Hajime, who blinked at the eye contact.

...

~ "Be careful with you sister, Mai," her mother said and she nodded furiously. ~

 

...

The crying had alleviated hours ago.

Gaara was starting to wonder what was going on. Small things, automatic paranoia and danger, automatically ran through his mind but he didn't even acknowledge it with a worried frown, just sighed and slid off the bed. It was cold, really cold; nearing the beginning of fall, the already frozen summer nights were getting nippier.

Sand from the floor clung to his feet as he went, hardening along the soles of his bare skin to ward off the chill. It was automatic, Gaara barely even needed to think or break his stride to create partial Sand Armor.

The hallways were silent, dusted with the first glitters of sunrise from the windows on either end of the hall. The sandstone floors looked wooden in the orange gleam. Still, it wasn't anywhere near noon or even true Suna morning. Fumiko hadn't been wearing much more than the thin shirt and pants she'd collapsed into the bed with when she'd left for the nursery.

Quietly- because the twins were sleeping and honestly he really wanted them to stay that way- he opened the door. There were no creaks or groans from the hinges or the wood, any civilian or untrained ninja would have thought it was freshly oiled, but it was just years and years of not only enduring shinobi training but also hiding from others pounded into his skin silencing his movements.

He was met with the quiet tinkling of music, mechanical and high. He recognized it vaguely in the background of Fumiko opening the initial flood of gifts and presents and hate mail and tidings and just mail following their announcement of the twins' conception. A music box or one of the many mobiles Fumiko had pulled out of the wrappings and boxes.

Gaara blinked slowly and let go of the door handle. It drifted a few more inches before stopping, nowhere near the wall.

Fumiko was dead asleep on the stool, arms draped across the crib's edge, one dangling into the bed itself and the other flat across it, propping her chin. Her hair had slid across the frame, bright against the dark brown, nearly black wood, half in and half out of the spokes.

Sighing again, this time with a little curl of a smile tugging the corner of his lip, he went to pick her up, carefully unwinding her limbs away from the crib with the sleeping children to keep from knotting her hair or jerking the bed and lifting her easily. She was a little heavier than she'd used to be, but considering how light she'd used to be, it still wasn't much.

Something flashed and caught the corner of his eye. The sand about him and coating the soles of his feet immediately rushed to catch the thing that had fallen out of Fumiko's lap before it could thump against the carpet, grabbing it easily and raising it up to Gaara's eye level.

It was a music box, and it still played it's little melody, striped blue and green glass with some hidden mechanism inside. The little golden knob on the top turned slowly. Gently he flicked his sand towards a dresser drawer holding all of the clothes Hajime and Hiroki had yet to grow into and dropped it on the smooth surface.

It continued to play as he stepped out, the light already off, sand trailing after him in wisps and closing the door behind him. Hinata's gifted yarn bag bumped featherlight against the front of his hip, something Fumiko didn't really need since she never really went off the living for and was in easy walking distance of everything but that she filled with diapers and changing supplies anyway just to wear around.

Eventually he nudged open his own bedroom door. The light was stronger now, shimmering over the paintings and pencils on the walls and at the head of the bed. It didn't really seem like she was going to wake up before seven, considering she'd probably fallen asleep at six or six thirty, if the tapered cries of his newborns were anything to go by.

His newborns, Gaara thought again as he placed her lightly on the bed. What a thing to wrap his head around, and he was already used to the cycle of sleeping and eating and working around.

Putting the blanket over her at this point would be inefficient on it's own- it was still cold, yes, but in an hour's time it would be hot and any half-decent Sunagakure comforter, especially those supplied to the Tower, would have her sweating, so he just carefully unwound the woven strap of the baby bag from Fumiko's shoulders and dropped it carefully next to her, far enough away that if she rolled she wouldn't land on top of it.

Then, with one last final look, he headed to the bathroom to shower.

...

~ "I will!" she promised. Her mother smiled at her again and ruffled her hair. ~

...

Nursing bras were funny things. They were convenient, pulled down. What people never seemed to realize that with the loose elasticity of maternity shirts, it was easy to pull down the shoulder and unclip a bra strap.

Hajime was still sleeping in the bedroom, but it was almost lunchtime for everyone else, so she was trying to make at the very least sandwich platters with breads and meats and cheeses and veggie condiments.

But she'd been interrupted in her endeavor when Hiroki started to cry in her pouch,and after a quick inspection revealed he wasn't dirty and he definitely wasn't tired, she dropped the all purpose knife, rinsed the tomato off her hands, and went to feed him.

She was alone in the kitchen anyway. Fumiko wasn't particularly concerned with anyone walking in on her, it'd happened before.

"There we go," she murmured to him. "That's better, yeah?"

A few minutes passed, and she held his head for support almost absently, waiting to be able to tuck him back into the pouch and finish setting lunch up before Hajime woke up.

The door opened. "Hey, Fumiko."

She turned, startled, from the counter, then smiled. "Hey, Kankuro. Done already?"

"It was just a patrol mission," he said. "I was off by noon, so I figured- uhh..." His face blanked, fingers still coming off the doorknob, sealing scroll hefted onto his back, strap gripped in his other hand.

"What...? Oh!" Fumiko giggled, turning away chastely so he couldn't see that side of her. Hiroki continued to suckle. "You know, Kankuro, you're the only one bothered by this kinda stuff."

"Born of a fear of Gaara killing me, now it's just really friggin awkward." Kankuro sighed, trying to hide the red flush with his hand dragging over his face. The purple paint on his nose smeared a little. "Do you have to do that in kitchen?"

She laughed again and gestured with her elbow the best she could to the trays. "Do you want lunch?"

...

~ "You're a good big sister, Fumiko-chan," she said. ~

...

"This is only until their sleep cycle regulates," Fumiko said, more to herself than to him.

"Right," Gaara agreed as his sand slowly swirled away from the black crib he'd so gently put down near the foot of their bed. The sand immediately around it bunched in closer, making a soft spot in place of the carpets. Hajime and Hiroki were both in either of her arms, moonlight from the windows turning both of their heads a strange shade of maroon. Gaara was sure his looked the same.

"We can't keep letting Temari and Kankuro wake up all the time," she said, pressing the twins together gently to put them both into the cribs. They mewled a little but seemed happy in the blankets. "They're not really used to being up so much, you know? Plus they have to go on missions."

"Right," Gaara repeated.

Fumiko just grinned at him.

...

~ Fumiko beamed up at her again before staring again at the baby, fascinated by the little sounds she made. The baby seemed to notice her, too, looking right back, little chubby hand reaching up for a bit of her hair. ~

...

After Gaara went to work the next morning, Fumiko changed both twins, both having woken up at nearly the same time.

Fumiko hummed lightly at Hajime, who kicked happily, little heels dragging across the little mat, hands tapping up and down. Hiroki, already cleaned up, waited in the crib. She would have to give them both baths later.

The last month and a handful of weeks had been busy, busier than she expected. As preemies they were still catching up, so they hadn't hit the milestones like being able to lift their heads while lying on their stomachs, or even smiling.

Fumiko paused, fingers sliding lightly across the sticky part of the diaper.

All of this would... Halt. When the war started. A month had passed, they had three, four more before everything finally came together and organized. Gaara was pending Regimental Commander. Mai was waiting on the results of her advancement exam.

Hajime looked at her expectantly, legs still wheeling.

They wanted to destroy this. Destroy lives, the peace in it along with the uncertainties. If she stayed, she would stay with the twins, waiting forever to see if Gaara had died, if her sister and her teammates died, if Yoshiki and everyone else died.

Waiting to see if the world would end, with no way to help.

Slowly she finished the job, pressing the wing down, then picked up her little boy, holding him tightly to her chest, supporting the head. Hajime made a little noise but stopped kicking.

Fumiko had somewhere, in the back of her mind, just assumed that she would go as well, just like she always did. Put now the twins were here, and besides she wasn't even a ninja, how could she possibly be cleared to go?

Fumiko had faith. But she didn't want to do- nothing, and spending all her time just being faithful and pretending everything would be okay, shopping for food as it slowly disappeared, as everything slowly dissolved like it always did during the war, resources draining, because otherwise she would be hopeless.

She looked at Hajime, dropping her arm to see his little face, winking and pale with his brown eyes and red hair and tiny nose and fingers and toes. Then she let her eyes drift to the crib, where Hiroki was starting to whine for his twin or his mother or both.

If they lost this war, this would disappear. This was what was at stake now.

Could she really just trust in the unseen, staying behind, seeing the first steps and the first words and everything that she wanted so desperately to see and be a part of, stay behind and update her scrapbook and blow glass for a mobile and wait for them to grow into their Daddy's lil' monster shirts?

Fumiko didn't believe in fate. She believed in twisting paths.

And she didn't want any of them cut short.

"Oh, Kami," she said to her child, to both of her children, like they could understand, like they could understand why there was water slipping down her nose, one single shiny trail that dripped off her chin onto Hajime's chest. "I have to fight."

...

~ Fumiko jerked her head to the side to shift it away from her fingers, then laughed. "No, Mai," she said lightly, "You can't pull people's hair. It isn't nice." ~

...

Now that she was exercising again, training again, the bulk of her leftover bump seemed to shrink with every movement. It wasn't long before she could fit into her white shirts again and switch out the looser quiver strap for the original.

Hajime and Hiroki were with Temari, who sat nearby under the shade of the back door arch of her gallery, bouncing them in her lap. Their heads were braced against her knees, and she kept her hands on their bodies even as she watched them train.

Mai was more than happy to help again, nodding in approval at her decision.

"You're making the right choice," she'd told her. "You're picking the rest of their lives rather than the first important parts."

She didn't know when she would bring it up to Gaara. Just that her sister, her growling war-bred, battle-hardened shinobi sister would understand what she was thinking and help her to prepare.

It only took days to get back to where she'd been, burning chakra and muscle with jutsu and the same physical training that kept her sister running. And, to her surprise and delight, she could execute an actual water ninjutsu. Water Bullet, to be exact. She wasn't sure who's really been more surprised, her or Mai.

Mai, probably. She was the one who'd gotten blasted.

Fumiko downed from a thermos of water for a break. "Temari," she called, trotting closer and kneeling in front of her, fingers reaching for her twins. "Are they hungry yet?"

"Not yet," she said, then admitted with an almost grudging sort of respect, "You're pretty good wit that staff of yours. And I had no idea you'd progressed so far with your ninjutsu."

"Yeah. I was, like, this close to actual Justus when I got pregnant." Fumiko nodded, "And, uh... Thanks. For being okay with this."

Temari rolled her eyes. "No need to get overly sentimental about it. I'm a shinobi. I can respect you wanting to fight for something. I think it's ridiculous that these people can sit on their asses and wait for the war to be over, anyway, but that's just my opinion."

"Yo, Fumiko!" Mai called. "I wanna ask you something!"

"Hmmm," she hummed and kissed both boys quickly before standing. "Thanks anyway," she said to Temari before turning to jog back to where her sister stood leaned up against the blood and dirt spotted post, arms crossed, staring at the ground. Her swords were sheathed.

"What is it?"

"Water affinity," she said. "You can't really master it. You'll never really master any element, since you literally cannot use enough chakra for anything above a C-rank, and even those drain you."

"Yeah, so?" Fumiko capped her water bottle, flicking a bit of hair away from her eyes.

"Once you learn the techniques, you never ever forget how to do them. Like, you'll always know how to use water release, now the only trick is to turn using it into instinct, but that's just repetition."

"Okay." Fumiko smiled a little uncertainly. "So you want me to do it again?"

"Nope." Mai grinned, raising a hand to twirl a bit of soaking wet hair around her pinky finger. "I want you to learn Earth Release."

"Earth release?" she exclaimed. "Why?"

"Because earth and water makes mud. You can use water release as a crutch to learn how to manipulate earth. It's like knowing wind and using it to learn fire- you can use an assist." Mai's fingers wiggled. "The more you know, the better. Jack of all trades, master of none."

...

~ Mai blinked at her. Fumiko leaned down a little to whisper to her quietly. ~

...

Gaara pursed his lips, letting his fingers run lightly over Fumiko's skin from where he laid beside her in the bed. She was fast asleep, of course, had been as soon as she hit the covers, and a quick glance had revealed the low chakra levels responsible.

Further inspection lead to a discovery of bruises and bloodless scrapes.

He'd known this was going to happen. Sooner or later, he'd known she was going to stop and really think about what was going to happen and she was going to make a decision. He'd hoped, of course, that the twins would change her mind before it even settled- they needed her.

But it wasn't in her nature to let things lie. She was an active person, unwilling to stand by if she could help, whether it was in a fight or in the kitchen or dealing with paperwork. It wasn't even so much that she didn't like to be useless as she just wasn't.

He didn't want to fight. He wanted to stay behind and watch his children grow, wanted to have quiet days with Fumiko, wanted to hide in a secret place and stay untouched just like they'd pacted to do so long ago.

But he couldn't. That was what killed him and why he knew he was going to lose even though he also knew he was going to fight her on it with everything in his arsenal. He couldn't stay behind and risk everything he had, couldn't risk her life or his sons' lives or his people's lives.

At least, he didn't want to risk them without being able to have a say in it. He could fight, and that was exactly why he was going to. If they were all going to perish he wasn't going to watch everyone die knowing he'd done nothing.

He just... Didn't want Fumiko to feel the same way. He was going to miss so much, and if she went so would she. Hajime and Hiroki, even if the war was won, could very well be orphaned before they ever really had a chance.

Suddenly, there was a small noise that quickly raised in tempo and urgency as one of the twins woke. Gaara at once was at his feet, spinning a sharp turn around the bed to lean over the crib and see who was upset.

Hiroki. Gaara sighed and reached down to pick him up, grabbing a felt yellow blanket as he did so to cover him in. He wasn't dirty, probably wasn't hungry just an hour after being fed.

He bounced his arms gently, not quite rocking, tucking the blanket in around his infant's tiny body as he spun slowly in the direction of the bed absently. "Easy," he murmured. "No need to wake up your aunt and uncle."

Hiroki didn't stop snuffling, but he did wind it down a little, just fussy. Perhaps a bit of a stomachache or maybe his brother had just jostled him out of sleep. He continued to bob him gently up and down, humming a restless, tuneless tone.

"He likes that."

Gaara jumped, head whipping up to see Fumiko blinking tiredly at him. Her teeth shone in the dark at his startled expression, lit only by starlight. It was cloudy tonight. "Fumiko?"

"I just woke up," she said, "Dunno why."

"I've got it," he said. "You can go back to sleep."

She studied him for a long moment without moving, face still flushed with sleep. His night vision was developed enough to see her in detail. And then she smiled again, sleepy, letting her eyes close, snuggling her face back into the pillow.

"You know, Gaara," she said, voice drifting away like it was on a cloud. "You're a really good daddy."

Gaara opened his mouth, but before he could say a single word, she was dead asleep.

...

~ "Don't worry. I'll teach you everything. You never have to worry about any-thing ever, 'cuz I'm your big sister now and I'll help you out. Mommy said so. Oh, Mai, we're gonna have so much fun together!"

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boosh


	20. Shinobi

...

~ Gaara never fidgeted. Even at eight, he recognized that as a sign of weakness, of discomfort. Far too revealing, in the word's of his father. ~

...

Satomi had been wandering the Elemental Nations for quite some time now, a swordswoman without a master; a Ronin.

Not many people knew that Satomi was excellent at gambling. Card games, specifically, and Hanafuda was her specialty.

Gambling was often a great method of information-gathering. If you went to a gambling house, the slums of a given village, the players often weren't too keen to give away information. But players had their pride, and oftentimes if you beat them at something- drinking, card games, gambling- they would try to save face, which tended to lead toward useful information.

This was a useful tactic when she had still been gathering information for the Akatsuki. She had been their number-two scout next to... whatever Zetsu had been. Kami, Zetsu had creeped her out. They'd always stared at her strangely. Especially the black one. Like they were going to murder her in her sleep or something...

At the moment, though, she wasn't doing any of these things. It was on accident, really, that she found herself in the bar. It wasn't huge, wasn't too busy; but it wasn't really small either. Well-lit. Hanafuda tables. They brought alcohol to you. All in all, pretty high class.

"How did you get so good?" the man across the table said suspiciously, leaning forward slightly, unknowingly semi-revealing his deck. "Nobody has ever beaten me three times in a row before. It's unnatural."

Satomi sighed, taking another sip of sake. Junmai Daiginjo, the good, refined stuff. She was honestly surprised that the Izayaka had such high quality rice wine. She made a quick glance over her shoulder, ignoring the full-time gambler across the table and spotted the gags of groups, five or six men swarmed with tattoos- it probably had something to with the Yakuza hanging around.

"Your cards are showing," she muttered offhandedly as she continued her sweep of the gambling house. "Whenever you lean over; your hand shows."

Before the other man could speak, cut off from his original stream of near-accusational questions, a raised word from the table nearest her right side caught her already waning attention. Satomi was getting bored.

"- going to join the Shinobi Alliance my brother was telling me about," one man of the three players was saying. He was average looking, with the standard red top and brown flak of an Iwa shinobi. Black, short hair. Probably used Doton Release. "But I heard the fight was against Uchiha Madara."

"... Uchiha Madara?" she murmured to herself, startled, but in her surprise must have raised her voice louder than she'd meant to, because the same man turned to blink at her, eyebrows creasing in a solemn expression.

"Yeah, that's what the Kage are saying happened at the Summit. Apparently, Madara declared war on shinobikind itself."

"Madara's been dead for eighty years," Satomi said sharply in her disbelief. "After he attacked Konohagakure with K- the Kyuubi," she corrected herself. "It's not possible."

The Iwa man shrugged. "That's what the Tsuchikage is saying. Supposedly, whoever this guy who's claiming to be Madara really is, he's planning on reviving something called the Ten-tails-"

"What?"

"Yeah." He frowned. "Where've you been? Rumor has it Akatsuki already has seven out of nine tails."

"..!" In her surprise- and admittedly, mild horror- Satomi's throat closed, leaving her speechless, and she could only stare at the unnamed shinobi. Shit, she thought as he blinked right back. Shit, shit, shit...

"Nobody even knew what was going on until Sunagakure's Kazekage called on everyone for a Summit. Apparently they've been picking jinchuuriki off one by one- I mean, I knew they had ours, but I never would've guessed it was some crazy master plot."

"So," she said weakly, "Sunagakure finally elected a new Kazekage?"

"What?"

"The former Kazekage died by Akatsuki's hand, correct?"

The Iwa shinobi frowned, now suspiciously. "The Kazekage didn't die. That was just a rumor. He's actually supposed to be a commander in the war. Where did you say you were from, again?"

...

~ But still, he felt extremely uncomfortable in this sterile room with unpopular magazines on the table, the sharp scent of antiseptic floating in the air; trapped awkwardly between the corner where he sat and Fumiko's parents, a safe two or three chairs away. ~

...

The redheaded woman's face, already pale, whitened like a fresh sheet.

And then, with a surge of blackness like she'd been ripped apart, the gambler disappeared.

Actually disappeared.

Into thin air.

"... It was the alcohol," he muttered, going back to his cards. His wide-eyed playing mates, still eyeing the empty chair and the gaping shinobi across from it, nodded blankly and turned back to their decks.

...

~ Mai was still at the Academy, though he wished at the moment she were here. The five year old had seemed to accept him, at least, and although she still jumped if he moved too quickly she would have at least sat beside him and talked. ~

...

Dear Lee,

This might come as a bit of a surprise. Most of my letters do lately! I don't know if you'll be on a mission or not, or if you'll be home at all, but I'm already a little late in sending this. This is a little sudden, but could you and Neji come over to Suna? I went into premature labor about a month and a half ago, but things have been so busy that I completely forgot to tell you! So I was wondering if you wanted to meet

"Hey," Fumiko chided with a laugh, shaking her hand out in surprise. Little black droplets of ink scattered across her page, highlighting the giant splotch of darkness that soaked her pen and the paper. She hurried to pick up the bottle, but it had nearly emptied completely.

Hajime blinked at her innocently like he hadn't just whacked over her inkwell.

"Don't you want to meet your godfather?" Fumiko laughed again, then stood, swinging her child up into the crook of her arm. It smeared a bit of black into his skin, but she would give him a bath later. She headed for the crib, where Hiroki was already awake but quiet for now, content to lie and kick his legs. "That's the last time I let you lie on the desk."

When he was settled Fumiko stretched her arms above her head, then sat back down at Gaara's work desk to take stock of the damage. Most of the words were legible except for the meet, but she could just keep on writing where the splotch ended. It wasn't like most of Lee's letters weren't smudged with all sorts of somethings.

She picked up a new brush, humming, and continued to write after dipping it into what remained of her nice black calligraphy ink.

meet them. Sorry, Hajime knocked over my ink. Hajime is Neji's godson, the oldest by a few minutes. Hiroki is yours. Lee, they both look exactly like Gaara! It's the strangest thing. And they're so small! Tell Neji that I have another chakra thing to tell him about.

Hope to see you soon, 

love,

\- Fumiko.

Hajime started to whine, so there wasn't really time to check it over properly. She just folded it up, tied it, and put it in Asuka's bag, which still sat in her room despite the fact that he had an actual messenger's tube she could use in the aviary. Fumiko dropped it over her wrist and then stood again, quick to cross the bed, snatching her cloth pouch off the corner at the foot of the bed.

"Hey now, hey," she soothed lightly and draped the pouch across her shoulders. She reached in and picked up Hajime first, since he was the one fussing, and tucked him into the fabric. Then she ducked down again for Hiroki. "Say, wanna go to the aviary with me? Hmm? Hm?"

Messenger bag in hand, she struck off towards the door and down the hall, nearly crashing into a paid servant in her haste to clear the door frame.

He swerved, and she yelped slightly, falling sideways against the wall to avoid him, before turning around. "Oh! Sugar!" She bit her lip, then grinned a little sheepishly as he finally looked her way, eyes still wide. "I'm sorry."

"It's no trouble, Lady Fumiko," he said smoothly.

Hiroki grunted at all the movement but otherwise made no protest. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." He smiled, and his eyes flickered like he couldn't help himself down at her pouch. Hajime's arm was waving but other than his little fingers, there was nothing he could see aside from the fabric itself. "I have to say the Tower's even more popular now than it was when they were first announced!"

"I haven't even gone down past the guest level since they were born!" She laughed, shifting her weight to her foot. "Is it really that bad?"

The man just shook his head bemusedly. "Not one of the staff can get away without a few questions and pictures. Everyone's expecting a big reveal, like it's an event. But, don't let me keep you, Fumiko-sama," he said suddenly, backtrack fast. "Please, continue with whatever business you were tending to."

"Oh- uh... okay." She grinned, cupped her arms around the pouch to bounce it. "Sorry again!"

He said nothing, only flashing another thin smile before turning and continuing on his way. Fumiko turned in the opposite direction, headed for the stairs that lead upward toward the aviary. Maybe while she was at the upper levels she could drop into Gaara's office and say hi.

...

~ He knew the only reason Mr. and Mrs. Mitsuwa were even in the same room with him was because they were waiting for Fumiko to come out of surgery. Her bones were growing again; she'd needed parts of her leg removed, shaving down her calf a little more. ~

...

Neji pursed his lips, pencil tapping lightly against the page in front of him.

Give his ideas on the matter, or no? It was a suspicion, nothing he could really confirm. But if there was someone left that his Byakugan hadn't seen during the mission, then that could potentially cause an issue later... He let the tip drop to indent the first line of an I.

"NEJI-SAN!"

The door to his quarters bowled open, rice paper tearing, spilling a somersaulted roll of green spandex and black hair. It rolled right into his chair, and in his surprise Neji didn't even move out of the way, didn't slide back or jump up or even brace his feet against the floor.

The seat toppled over, Neji still in it, and he let out a sharp, uncontrolled grunt as he was swept to the floor in a pile of chair legs and limbs.

Lee, of course, was up before he was, springing to his feet like he'd never tripped over the bottom of the entry way. Neji, in comparison, was slower to sit up, calmly pushing the chair away and reaching up to brush away the hair splayed out across his eyes. Before he could stand, though, Lee beat him to it, grasping his shoulders and jerking him to his feet.

"Neji-san! Neji-san!" Paper crinkled against Neji's arm in his teammate's fingers. A letter? "You will never guess what!"

"What, Lee?" he managed through gritted teeth. Lee beamed, then let go to shove the paper in his face.

"We are going to Konoha! We must inform the Hokage immediately!"

...

~ The same probably applied to every other person in here giving him a diverse set of sideways, fearful, resentful, and angry glances and glares. They just couldn't leave. He ignored them, as he always did, wishing again for the company of the Mitsuwa sisters under the scrutiny. ~

...

"Cat! No!" Mai grabbed him by the scruff before he could spring out of his crouch, holding him up to her shoulder level. He mewled indignantly, squirming and pawing and still hissing at the messenger bird that had just come through her door.

"Mai! I let a bird in! It's for you!"

"Gee, thanks so much for the warning, mom!" She scowled. "Oh, for Kami's sake, calm down! Stupid animal." With her free hand, Mai pulled open the flap of the burlap bag the big bulky bird had dropped on her desktop. Muttering under her breath, she pulled out a manila folder, flipping it over to see the sender.

She'd just been lucky to have the reaction time to flash across the room from where she'd been doing practice tai chi with her new swords to the desk her cat had been sitting on before the feline jumped. No offense to it, but she was pretty sure that bird would have beat the hell out of her pet.

Her eyes skimmed the kanji, and then the arm holding her cat dropped down to her side. She ignored Cat's yowl of displeasure. "Oh, shit," she said. "This is from Chuunin corps."

She knelt quickly to deposit Cat on the floor, then waved at the bird distractedly. It snarked at her once before up and leaving, careening through her bedroom and to the hallway without banging into her punching bag like some birds did, so she knew she wasn't supposed to reply. For some reason that made her nervous and she straightened, tugging at her earring with her free hand as she turned the envelope back over to look at the seal.

Her Chuunin test results. It had to be. Baki must have finally gotten around to submitting his report to them.

It had been no small relief that the 'exam' Baki had shoved her through was almost purely physical. Sure, he asked her complicated questions about kunai direction and wind flow and deflections and crazy stuff that would've been absolute gibberish on paper, but he'd been asking her to actually present how and well, she could just do that shit on the field.

There'd been lots of combat with shadow clones and other chuunin and even other genin, varying weapons and rules and exceptions, lots of repetitional work. Sensory games that lasted minutes; child's play compared to ANBU's games, ninjutsu tests, a Genjutsu she'd bombed entirely on purpose- of course she could've activated her eyeballs and scooted out, but as it was she couldn't tell the difference between genjutsu and reality to save her life, and if it wasn't just crazy shit she couldn't escape.

The only thing she wasn't sure about aside from the genjutsu test was the psyche test, the freaking one hundred and sixty three question written bullshit with multiple choice and short-essay-responses and Not-at-all to All-the-time personality quizzing. Here and there she'd answered things dishonestly, but that was hard to gauge because were they trying to see if she already had mental issues or that she was too innocent for a warzone?

Mai flopped back against the bed, ignoring the slightly painful press of one of her sheaths, trapped between the sheets and her hip. Legs draped over the side, she wasn't surprised when Cat dug in his claws and raced up her pant leg, still disgruntled-looking but curious, snuffling at her elbow when she raised the package to give him a path to her stomach.

"What do you think, huh?" she asked the animal, smirking slightly. "I bet we all made it. They need firepower."

"Mew-mew." He headbutted her elbow.

"That's all you ever say."

"Mew."

She rolled her eyes, then, bypassing the entire over complicated process of digging her fingers under the flap and breaking the chakra-less seal and getting wax and glue under her fingernails and tearing it into shreds before she could actually take out the paper inside, she just ripped the top of the envelope off.

Mai tipped it slightly to see what was inside, then yelped when a small pile of papers rained down into her face, sitting up wildly and flailing at it all. Cat made an alarmed, screeching noise and bounded to the other end of the bed, tail thrashing.

After a second and a few breaths she composed herself and picked up one of the sheets of paper that hadn't fallen to the floor, squinting at the suspiciously paperwork-esque format.

"Hey," she said. "Hey, this is registration stuff!"

Numbers and words and circle-these's and ranks and style and all sorts of specialized questions to pinpoint her specialties in missions both team and solo, and there was even a normal little set of checkboxes next to a bold-print ANBU: Yes or No, and If Yes, please specify subdivision and rank and code words.

Cat, curious but wary, edged closer. Heedless, Mai stood, stretching her arms up leisurely, loosely holding her wrist, paper still in hand. Then she stepped over the scattered papers on the floor, heading for her blades, abandoned on the floor. She swiped them, dropped them in their sheaths.

"C'mon, Cat, let's hit the town," she said, jerking her fingers with the paper in it to wave him onto her shoulder. Cat scrambled to leap off the bed to her legs, muscled up her thighs and the back of her shirt. "Let's go find my teammates, eh?"

...

~ So he didn't fidget, despite the desire to tug on the hem of his poncho. Gaara merely sat there, staring at the wall, consciously keeping everything except, perhaps, for boredom from flickering into his expression. Blank. ~

...

"Gaara," came the voice outside his door. "I brought lunch! Tetsuki's helping."

The door itself opened, and Gaara let his eyes slide up from his papers. Fumiko came in first, holding the twins securely one in each arm. They both looked to be either sleeping or extremely sleepy, unroused by their mother's loud, happy tones.

Close on her heels was Tetsuki, a younger aid in the Tower with black hair and black eyes and a nervous air about him, balancing Fumiko's usual meal tray. There were just bowls and a thermos on it, and silverware, of course- probably something that she could just throw things in a pot and wait for it so she could still tend the twins whenever they called for it.

Seemingly almost forgotten on her back was the lightly clattering quiver, staff clicking about inside it. She sat herself easily on the stool beside him, unaware of his gaze, settling both twins on her legs so they were flat. When she looked up again it was to Tetsuko carefully putting the tray down, uncertain and careful not to put it on top of anything, not at all like Fumiko, who just plopped the food down on his work.

She beamed at him. "Thanks!" she said cheerfully, rubbing at Hiroki's chest. The dark green of a healing bruise was flowered across her wrist, a block, maybe, or she'd spun her staff into an impact. "I really appreciate it, there's no way I could've got that up here all on my own."

The man stuttered out a response, eyes on Gaara the entire time, before awkwardly bowing and backing out the door. It closed softly, barely clicking into place, and he could hear Tetsuko's harried footsteps as he headed back for the stairs.

Fumiko giggled. "I think you scare him," she said.

"I scare many people." Gaara smiled and picked up a bowl sloshing with clear liquid. Mushrooms, onions and chives floated about inside it. There was already a broth spoon in the bowl, so he picked lightly at it.

"Only when you stare at them." She grinned, then elbowed his arm. "You look like a sculpture when you do that."

Gaara blew out a breath at her, a slight sigh that ruffled his hair. When she only grinned wider he went back to his food after casting a quick glance down at the twins. He couldn't help but monitor the chakra in the room, this suddenly very important room with everything inside it. Even the twins had chakras, though they were stained heavily with Fumiko's own bluish-brown, muffled bright blues and greens.

His paranoia had increased, he noted with a touch of displeasure. The mailed threats shouldn't have been bothering him the way they were; he'd always gotten plenty of those with nothing to come of it, but the typed out warnings against Fumiko and their children just touched nerves he didn't want touched. But that was okay. In his experience, a touch of paranoia never led a shinobi astray.

"Did you hear?" he said suddenly to take his mind off it. "Baki came to report the other day. All of Team Otokaze were promoted to Chuunin status, as soon as they fill out their registration."

"Fantastic!" Fumiko grinned. "So Mai'll be fighting too, then. I'm glad. Having her there will help us out a ton- the- war." she stammered suddenly, voice tripping. "Help the- the war effort."

Gaara said nothing, pursed his lips tight, listened to the bright song of green and blue and brown.

"... Gaara..."

"Hmm?" His blood rushed, heartbeat picking up slightly. Her tone had changed, going from happy to hesitant in a lighting strike's time. He kept his eyes on his food, wondered if it was obvious or not that he was avoiding her eyes, avoiding her tone.

"... Be... careful. You're gonna spill that everywhere, silly." Her tongue didn't even slip as it changed course, and she laughed, knees kicking into a gentle bounce as one of the twins gurgled.

He smiled back, small. "Right."

...

~ "Family of Mitsuwa Fumiko?" someone- a nurse in green scrubs- called from the far side of the room, door open behind her. Mr. and Mrs. Mitsuwa slid to their feet immedietly, and Gaara waited to trail them, keeping a chaste distance ~ 

...

"Oi," Shikamaru said, a little irritably and a lot tiredly. "We're here because Fumiko invited them and because I need to talk to the Kazekage about the Alliance, not because we're trying to assassinate or kidnap her. This is the letter-" Here he tapped the paper on the desk. "And we're all really tired."

"Fumiko-sama didn't say she was having company."

"She has kids," he said with exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose. "She probably forgot."

Lee wasn't particularly interested in the conversation, nor was he particularly tired, bouncing up on his heels to try and see up the staircase. Surely Fumiko was expecting them? It had only been four days since he had received the letter, and it had only taken that long because the Hokage Tsunade wanted to tag Shikamaru with them and make the trip an official political mission.

"I'm sorry, sir. We can send a runner up to her room to make sure, but you'll have to wait here."

Shikamaru sighed, then rocked back onto his heels, hands dropping to his pockets. He looked up, eyes dragging across the ceiling. "What a drag," he muttered. "Fine. We'll wait out here."

'Here' was the lobby of the Kazekage Tower, bustling with people and without even chairs for those waiting, merely a few potted cacti here and there, and bare floors besides. He had noticed that the people of Sunagakure tended to be very minimal in nature.

"Now what are you doing here?"

Lee blinked and turned to the voice to find Temari, hands on her hips, fan on her back. After a few half-seconds of surprise, he beamed. "Temari! We are here to visit Fumiko! She invited us to-"

"Right, right." Her hand waved dismissively. "Godparents, and all. But why are you here?" seh asked again, this time directing her attention at Shikamaru who had loped closer from the main desk along with Neji, who gave her a curt nod, which she returned, still with that dry smirk.

"I'm here to talk with Gaara about the Shinobi Alliance plans," Shikamaru answered. "It's a pain, but Tsunade-sama requested it specifically-"

"I want to see the twins!" Lee inturrupted. "I am a Godfather! I will do my best to protect them and their-"

"If you say 'youth' I will hurt you," Temari threatened, but then sighed. "Anou. I'll take you guys up, I remember Fumiko saying something about inviting you two. Tsubaki-san, they're with me."

Tsubaki-san didn't look too pleased at being undermined, but she nodded. "Of course, Temari-sama."

Lee, already knowing where to go and without waiting for a nod from Temari or Shikamaru, their team leader, or Neji, his former Genin teammate, whooped loudly and raced up the stairs as quickly as his four hundred pound ankle weights would let him.

...

~ Against the rules, he was sure, that nervous nurse let him pass into the hallway. ~

...

People usually knocked on her door before coming in. Mostly because she was the Kazekage's girlfriend, and nobody wanted to disrespect her while she lived in the Kazekage's Family's staying quarters, but also because much of the time, whoever was opening the door was afraid of Gaara being in there and accidentally taking an unexpected visitor out.

Even Kankuro and Temari knocked. Kankuro, because he was getting wary of walking in on her naked, feeding, or otherwise doing something he didn't want to see, and Temari, because she was polite that way and implemented every etiquette save for curbing her sarcasm. The only people that really opened her bedroom doors without prior warning were Gaara and Mai.

This was part f the reason why she was so startled when the door flung open like it'd been punched without any warning, and for a second she stumbled a retreat towards the back of the room, Hajime and Hiroki in her arms- she'd been rocking them, about ready to take them to get baths- but then she heard the intruder's voice, and instantly brightened.

"Fumikooo!" Lee yelled, sticking up a hand like he was either going to wave or salute her as he skidded to a stop just inside her bedroom. "Yosh! We came as soon as we got your letter!"

"Lee!" Fumiko exclaimed, beaming fit to match his. "Ha ha, you scared me!"

"Ah! I apologize!" His smile twisted a little sheepishly, and his raised hand went to the back of his head. "I did not mean to- Neji tells me I should stop bursting into other people's rooms!"

"No, it's okay," she promised, but then all of a sudden both twins were crying, startled by the noise of the door and Lee's sudden shouting and their mother's own jerked movements. "Oh, hey, shh, it's okay, it's just Lee."

Lee was in front of her with enough speed that it rustled her hair when she stopped. "Which one is which?" He demanded, although Lee demanding sounded more like extremely loud excitement than anything else.

"This one's Hiroki, your Godson, and Mai's," she said, lifting him in her right arm slightly. "And this is Hajime, Neji's and Temari's Godson. Where is Neji, by the way?"

"He is here!" he reassured her, reaching excitedly for Hiroki, poking his little hands so that they grabbed at his fingers, and then laughing delightedly. "He is just slow! Shikamaru is here as well!"

"Shikamaru?" Fumiko blinked, then smiled again. "Ah! I'm sorry, you want to hold him, don't you? I was just going to give them a bath, but that can wait. Oh, this is great! I can't wait to tell Gaara you're all here!" Carefully she passed Hiroki into Lee's arms, still snuffling and fussing, and he took the infant surprisingly gently, like he knew exactly how to hold them.

"We will stay for a week!" Lee exclaimed. "Tsunade-sama decided to make this a political mission, and to add Shikamaru to our team to speak personally to Gaara about the Alliance plans! So, we are technically getting paid to come here!" He grinned, Suna sunlight sparkling off his teeth.

"Sweet! Hey, I think Hiroki likes you," she observed as she switched to holding Hajime with both arms. He was starting to quiet, shocked startlement wearing off, and surprisingly, so was Hiroki, despite his proximity to the loud noise that had set him off to begin with.

"Yosh! Good!"

"Lee? Are you in here?"

"Hai, Neji!" Lee called over his shoulder, then twisted to face them as they stepped into the doorway, holding out his arms. "Look! Look!"

"I see," Neji said, voice and expression fairly neutral save for a small, friendly smile. "Hello, Fumiko-san."

"Hello, Neji-san," she said stiffly, mimicking his formal tone, face serious, and then she broke into a laugh, nearly skipping closer. Shikamaru stepped in behind Neji, followed by Temari, who nodded at her with a little smile that wasn't, actually, a smirk. "No need to be stuffy! We're all friends here!"

"I found them downstairs," the eldest Sand Sibling informed her with a cautious glance toward the still-ecstatic Lee, but Fumiko both trusted him and kept an eye on him, and knew he was still fine with Hiroki despite his vibrant energy. "You forgot to let Tsubaki down at the desk know they were coming."

If she could have smacked herself, she would have, but as it was she gasped. "Sugar! Sorry, you guys," she said apologetically, hefting Hajime again. They were both wrapped tight in swaddled blankets, their preferred state of travel, warm to their tiny bodies.

Neji blinked, eyes flicking down to the bundle in her arms, and then for just a second his friendly stoicism slipped distractedly. "Is that...?"

"Hajime!" She grinned happily. "You Godson, Neji. And Temari's too!"

Instead of asking to hold him, like she'd been sure he was about to, he furrowed his brow. "You gave one child both Mai and Lee for Godparents?"

Fumiko burst out laughing, which startled Hajime a little, but the baby was used to his mother's antics and relaxed almost as quickly as his little eyes had jumped open. "He'll be good at Taijutsu if nothing else!" She proclaimed.

"Fumiko, why is he so small?" Lee called.

"He was born super early. They both were."

"Premature, then." Neji said, nodding. "Like Gaara-sama, it seems."

"Well, I have to go," Temari said, flashing a smirk. "You kids have fun. I'll let Gaara know you're here, I'm heading that way anyway."

"Thanks!"

"I'll come with you," Shikamaru said. "I need to speak to Gaara as well. It was nice seeing you again, Fumiko. I'll see you during dinner?"

"Duh!" She grinned again. "Curry tonight, and I can make grilled mackerel, too! Oh! Oh! And Herring soba! Everyone's favorites! We're going down to the market place, for sure. Come inside, Neji. I'll have some of the maids make you up guests rooms in just a second."

Neji stepped inside, and with a final, thin smile Shikamaru let the door close. Fumiko could hear his slouching footsteps trailing after Temari's already fading raps.

"Neji, it was true!" Lee decided, and Neji flinched slightly at the sudden proximity, but Lee seemed to be racing about the room somehow without jolting Hiroki, who looked only mildly concerned with his situation, confused at the strange presence. "They look almost identical to Gaara! Ha!"

"Here, Neji," Fumiko said, and gestured with her full arms at him. After a second's blank confusion, he seemed to understand and reached gingerly to take his godchild out of her arms with a similar awkward air as Mai, only more at ease. Fumiko could tell, though, that he didn't really know what he was doing, and was just copying her own former posture.

"He does," the Hyuga realized as he looked down at the infant. "How odd. It's barely a blend of features, nearly entirely identical to Gaara, except for the eyes."

"I know, right?" Fumiko trotted to the closed door now that her arms were free, then opened it and peered about. "Katsuchi!" she called upon spotting the man as he came around the corner. He glanced at her, surprised. "Katsuchi, hey! Hi! Could you please let Sunako know to set up three of the guest rooms? Please?"

"Of course," he called back.

There was a startled yelp behind her, and, distracted, she pulled back inside without waving. Then almost burst out laughing again as she realized that Hajime had gotten a little fistful of Neji's long black hair, and it kind of looked like he was trying to pull him away from it.

...

~ They walked to one of the overnight rooms, where Fumiko would stay to make sure nothing had gone wrong and also until her prescription got made up. The nurse nodded at them, smiled, but her eyes flickered to his every- it was sad that he counted- five to six seconds. ~

...

Gaara had been surprised to hear about Lee, Neji, and Shikamaru's rather swift arrival. It was starting to look like that any given leaf ninja would drop everything on one of Fumiko's urgent letters and come immediately.

Well, perhaps not that surprised about Lee. But Neji's arrival was... well, maybe not surprising after all. It was a tried and true result. At least Tsunade had made the best of their request and turned it into something appropriate that needed to be handled anyway.

Nara Shikamaru was smart. Gaara had always known he was smart, right from the very beginning, even before his match with Temari- he was tactics-smart, choosing to hold back or to use his words quickly if he felt threatened, he didn't run head-on into a situation like Naruto had. Face to face with Gaara, that was how he had handled the situation.

Over the years, it seemed, his tactics had grown more aggressive. Not necessarily more reckless, but with more risks involved. Gaara respected that, because it vastly broadened the horizons of his skills, and he was talented enough to make up for risks with higher probabilities of success than others. Often he was the only one that could understand or carry out his own plans.

If there was anyone to discuss the coming, entirely hypothetical war with, it was Shikamaru. Level-headed and practical, he came up with every worst-and-best case scenario and everything in between, coming up with counterattacks and defenses and offenses. The hypothetical, indeed, was where the strategist thrived.

Lazy, yes, but when motivated with a serious air about him, the Nara was unrelenting in his pursuit of possibilities.

The entire work day had been pushed aside to discuss, going beyond the Raikage's hazard requests and pushing their own barriers. They took the submissions they already had, the chakra types, the specializations, the probable enemies, how they could use anything and everything to their advantage.

Eventually, Neji opened the office door, cutting immediately into their almost-finished delve.

"Excuse me," he said levelly. "But Fumiko asked me to come get you. And to ask you-" Here he nodded at Gaara, who blinked- "If you could come down to eat, as well."

Well, it wasn't like he was going to finish his other work any time soon. Gaara sighed. "We'll be down in a moment," he said, and again Neji nodded before closing the door. Gaara tracked his signature to the stairs, then signed quickly to the few ANBU stationed in his office. They would leave only after he and Shikamaru had, protocol with any foreign ninja.

After a few moments of tucking papers and maps into folders, Gaara stood. Shikamaru followed suit, trailing him to the door, a careful three or four steps distance kept between them.

Shikamaru was quiet until they reached the stairs, speculative gaze burning into the back of his skull.

Finally, he said, "What are you going to do, when she asks you?"

"When who asks me, what?" He asked bluntly, well-aware exactly what the Konoha nin was referring to.

"Fumiko," Shikamaru clarified, although Gaara knew the Nara had caught his hesitation. "About the war. There's no way she'll let you go alone. It isn't in her nature. If she hasn't said anything yet, it's because she doesn't want to ruin what she has."

"She can't come."

Shikamaru snorted, a harsh sound Gaara hadn't been expecting. He stopped short in the middle of the staircase, hand on the railing. Shikamaru continued walking, only stopping when he was a few steps below the Kazekage. "I don't think you'll really be able to stop her."

"Then why bring it up?"

The ninja shrugged lazily, hands in his pockets. His eyes drooped, as they always did. Shikamaru often reminded him of a cat, stretched out in the sun. "I don't know which way is the best," he said in lieu of answer. "Letting her go or forcing her to stay. Definitely, she probably wouldn't make much difference either way, whether she has multiple skills or not."

"But?" Gaara could hear the irritation creeping into his own voice.

"But I think," he said, seemingly unaffected by his narrowed gaze, "That she's more like her sister, and more like you, than you realize." His droopy, relaxed eyes moved to catch his, but easy as they were there was a spark of something more intense, a front wall like red, flameless coals.

That was so unexpected, so completely not what he had expected to slip out of the ninja's mouth, that Gaara felt his face smooth out with surprise. "What-"

"Gaara!" came the familiar voice below them floating up the stairs. With it floated the telltale smell of mild curry and fish, a strange, somehow soft accompaniment. "Neji told me you were coming, but you were taking forever! You okay?"

"Yes," he said, eyeing Shikamaru, who merely watched him in return. "Yes, we're coming."

...

~ They opened the door to the off-tune, drawling sound of singing, and were greeted immediately by a doctor who proceeded to say words Gaara didn't understand, and so his attention wandered to the singing. ~

...

In hindsight, it probably would have been a better idea to have curry one day, mackerel the next, and Herring Soba after that, rather than having them all on the same day, because then she was out of favorite foods after the first dinner and was stuck coming up with different recipes.

Dinners with their Konoha friends were amazingly fun, loud and diverse and cheerful, more and more the more of them that came. Lee was a big part of that, but so was Tenten, and Uzumaki Naruto and Kiba, and Ino and Sakura. Everyone always contributed.

The meals after for the next week consisted of lasagna, Sukiyaki, Kaiseki Ryori, salmon and beef fajitas, Okonomiyaki, and in honor of Uzumaki Naruto, different kinds of ramen. Breakfasts and lunches varied anywhere from rolled omelets and bacon and fish to hamburgers and rice dishes and soba.

Mealtimes were her favorite times, because she could cook while Lee or Temari or Kankuro or Mai or Neji or someone looked after the twins nearby and talked to her, and then they all got to sit down around the table and hang out, give or take a Gaara.

But she also liked their game tournaments, which seemed to have become something like a tradition, given that Lee asked right away when they were going to pull out Shogi or Go or Sorry or Monopoly or one of her many other games. And she liked the moments where Neji helped her bathe the twins and Lee helped feed them and when she taught them both how to swaddle and hold and play.

Shikamaru, to her surprise and immediate delight, with a dry smirk that suggested he'd known the entire time exactly how she was going to react, pulled out a cigarette case and pulled out a chocolate cigarette, slightly different than the recipe she'd given him but still.

It was with them that she, for the first time since giving birth to the twins, went outside the Tower. Lee's natural exuberance seemed to repel any curious, traditional, stuffy Sunagakure citizens, but those who got closer and who also happened to be angry people, overly happy strangers, and reporters were quickly sent off by Neji's white-eyed stare, even Shikamaru's lazy, slouched demeanor, eyes always pinned to a person, seemed to unnerve them.

It felt good to be outside again, with the heat on her skin and the sand blowing into her body, even better to be outside with her friends that she never saw anymore. Temari, Kankuro, or Gaara watched Hajime and Hiroki, given that they really weren't anywhere close to being ready for Suna's harsh environment.

Needless to say, she was kind of sad when, a week later, they finally had to leave.

"Say hi to everyone for me," she said as she hugged them all goodbye. Lee squeezed back.

"Of course! And we will tell everyone about Hajime and Hiroki, too!" he declared. "And then someday we will all come down together to visit! Or you can come and visit us!"

"Definitely!" Fumiko nodded. "I guess- I'll see you guys soon."

Neji gave her an odd look, but said nothing about it. "Yes," he said slowly instead. "See you soon."

Shikamaru's look was more knowing. Shikamaru had many different looks, all hidden under the same guise of lazy tiredness, and in this case it was knowing, supportive. Gentle, if anything about him could really be described as such. "Yeah, see you."

"First one through the Konoha Gates wins!" Lee challenged, dancing backwards as Fumiko released him out passed the gates and jogging in place. "Loser has to run five hundred laps around the village!"

"Lee, we haven't even left yet," Neji muttered, but turned away to start walking with a final, polite 'Goodbye'. After a moment, Shikamaru sighed and slunk after them both with a slow wave over his shoulder.

As they left, she cupped her hands around her mouth and called, "Byyyee!"

Ninja were fast. Within moments, they faded away into Lee's sandstorm trail and were gone over the crest of a dune.

...

~ Fumiko's eyes were unfocused, and it didn't really seem like she'd noticed them yet. The hospital bed was huge on her; big aluminum railings that were probably supposed to keep her from rolling off made her look like a prisoner. ~

...

As soon as she reentered the Tower doors, she was flagged down by Tsubaki at the head desk. The dark-haired woman looked concerned, so she wasted no time in hurrying over, excusing herself past a few people who looked annoyed before they recognized her face.

"What's wrong, Tsubaki?"

"There was someone here earlier asking about you," she said. "But when I tried to tell her she couldn't see you without your knowing, she disappeared."

"She left?"

"No. Well, yes, but..." She pushed up her glasses, a little flustered. "I mean she actually disappeared."

"Like a jutsu?" Fumiko frowned. "Did you tell Gaara about it?"

"Of course. We sent a runner up to him as soon as it happened. He had someone check around on the floor and stay posted there, but they couldn't find anyone. Whoever it was, they aren't still in the Tower." Still there was that concerned look, and she leaned forward slightly, ignoring the line that was starting to clog up behind her. "I just wanted to let you know. You should be careful, Fumiko-sama."

"Huh." Fumiko chewed at her lip thoughtfully. "Well, thanks, Tsubaki. I'll keep an eye out. Did the runner tell you where the kids are?"

"In the Kazekage's office, by his orders." Tsubaki smiled. "I believe Kankuro-sama is with them as well."

"Oh. Good." Fumiko smiled back. "Thanks for the heads up, again."

"Of course."

With a final thanks, she moved out of the way so the next person could talk to the receptionist, then headed to and up the stairs, mind buzzing.

She wondered who it could've been. A foreign ninja, maybe? An enemy, or a friend? It could have been any number of people. She also wondered if Gaara had sent anyone out to trail her and decided that yes, he probably had, and either they'd remained out of sight or lost her in the crowd before they could approach her.

But it didn't matter. Whoever it was was gone now. She passed through a few of the other floors on her way back up, planning to stop only briefly in the bedroom to change out of her sandy clothes into new ones- because it was better not to be covered in sand when you held premature infants- before heading up to the office to ask Gaara about the strange visitor.

It didn't matter, she thought as finally she stepped into the hallway of the Main Quarters, but still, she was curious. After all, as much as it might've been an enemy, it might have also been a friend. She hadn't gone through all of her letters yet, she was never done going through letters; maybe someone had let her know they were coming and the people in the aviary just hadn't recognized the name enough to put in in her personal mail pile?

But who did she know that could disappear? Or was it someone new? Or-

Fumiko stopped dead, halfway between the staircase and her bedroom. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

Someone who could disappear...

A noise made her jump and whip around in the direction she'd come from. The nursery, she realized. The nursery they weren't using yet except to change the kids and hold the clothes and toys.

Against her better judgement, she crept up to the door and put her ear up to it. There was nothing to hear, really. But the room was carpeted, if someone was just standing there, she wouldn't hear it...

She opened the door.

And there she was, suspicions confirmed, standing in the middle of the room, gazing up at the artwork on the walls. But at the sound of the door creaking her eyes came down sharply, shoulders already fizzing black for a second like she would try to escape. Upon meeting her eyes, though, hers widened slightly, then faded to a nervous squint.

"Um," she said before Fumiko could even open her mouth. "... Congratulations on the babies?"

Fumiko continued to stare at her, frozen. Akatsuki, her mind whispered. Just looking at her and her red hair brought back the memory of explosions and pain and oh, Kami, why was she in here, she knew about her twins, was she still working for the Akatsuki?

"Can we maybe ta-"

Fumiko slammed the door shut before she could finish and ran, shouting for Gaara, to the stairs.

Of course she knew it was basically useless, but she tried anyway. Maybe if she got up high enough, or if her chakra was distressed enough, Gaara would feel it and- and what? Was it happening again? Was there another Akatsuki coming to the village?

She'd made it probably just a third of the way up the stairs when the air directly in front of her darkened and she yelped, taking a quick step backwards- off the step.

Something gripped around her wrist, and it took a second for her to realize it was a hand, fully formed from the black two-dimensional dust, and her eyes tracked from Satomi's fingers to her arm and eventually to her face, which seemed kind of pained, and almost- awkward, lips pressed into a thin line.

She opened her mouth again to scream, wondering in the back of her mind if maybe there was someone nearby, if maybe Kankuro was in the hall or a servant or anyone- but Satomi spoke first before a sound could pass her lips.

"Wait!" She put up her free hand. "I wasn't want to talk! I swear! I'm not here to hurt anyone, I'm not with the Akatsuki anymore- anybody I was friends with is either dead, dying- one of them's buried in a hole- I mean he kidna can't die, I don't think..." her frantic voice tapered to something more confused. ".. Maybe malnutrition...? But Nagato was not who I thought he was, Deidara blew himself up- I don't even know where Kisame is! I'm pretty sure Itachi's dead- I don't know how... maybe his sickness?"

"Wait, Itachi is dead?" Her voice came out as a high squeak. "What-"

"I'm sorry!" The words were timid and rushed.

She just stared, not quite sure exactly what was going through her own head. Moast of what she'd just heard had been quick and slurred together and didn't really make a lot of sense at all but- what? 

"What?" she echoed.

"I am not explaining this well, am I?" She sighed, something of a tired, strained smile flitting across her face.

"Why are you here?"

"Because I can give information on the Akatsuki and everything I know. And perhaps even some things they did not."

"Things they..." Even Fumiko could feel the bewilderment on her face, and she was still kind of hovering precariously over the empty space of the stairwell with Satomi's fingers still wrapped around her wrist. "What are you- what are you doing here? Let go of me!"

Satomi flinched and obeyed, and she let out a strangled kind of screech as she started to fall backward, but then the kenjutsu user startled and grabbed her arm again, until at least she caught a good footing on the star beneath her before her hand sprung away once more, like Fumiko's skin was a branding iron, hot and glowing.

She grabbed wildly onto the stair railing.

Fumiko could feel the blood draining out of her face, the rapid beating of her heart. Here was the girl who'd been so kind only to rip the rug out from under her feet, who'd eaten her cookies and been an Akatsuki in disguise. Here was the girl, a red cloud manifested, who had helped send her spiraling into depression and Gaara into the afterlife.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered.

"I know, I know, I know!" she said quickly. "I actually know quite a bit about Madara, so I can tell you what to expect and-"

"Unless you wish to die, get away from her." Satomi jumped, flinching. Her head whipped around to see Gaara at the top of the stairs, looking despite the icy coldness of his tone a little disheveled, without his hat, robes a little messy like he'd run down the stairs from his office, which granted he probably had. "Now."

Satomi flinched again. "Wait! I am actually here to-"

Even with her poor civilian eyes, Fumiko could see the way Gaara's eyes narrowed to slits. Unlike her eyes, however, her hearing was well above average, and even without that she would easy have heard the threatening hiss as Gaara's sand, probably without his even meaning to, started to bubble and roil; the dancers around his face along with the chakra-infused weapon of his gourd.

The redhead stiffened, shoulders squaring off where she stood. Her eyes narrowed. "Look, I know I haven't made the best decisions regarding your village. But there's no need to posture, I'm actually here to help."

Of course Satomi wouldn't realize that Gaara's reaction was, actually, not posturing, and that she really probably needed to leave because he wasn't trying to intimidate her; Gaara was just really, really angry and his sand was reacting to it.

Quickly and kind of hoping Satomi wouldn't notice at least for the first few seconds- she was acting strangely and it was kind of confusing but she was taking no chances- Fumiko backtracked down the steps toward the main floor. If something was about to happen; if Gaara was going to blow up the staircase with his sand or otherwise make it shake at all, she'd really rather be on solid ground.

Gaara must have done something else- narrowed his eyes more or pursed his lips or something equally revealing- because suddenly Satomi's defensive posture slipped slightly. "Oh. You are not posturing. You are simply enraged."

The almost offhand tone of her voice, tinged with a bit of realization, seemed almost underwhelming. And it was also just enough to set Gaara off, because his lips slid back and the cork of his gourd had to have dissolved, because sand shot up vertical above his head before twisting like a snake.

"Please remember," Satomi said as the sand aagged like a tetris peice towards her, turning to Fumiko slightly. "I am not the real enemy here."

Gaara sand burst through nothing but the fading shadow of darkness, scattering down the steps like a dry waterfall.

...

~ Wary of the doctors' reactions to his voice, Gaara said nothing at all, content to just watch as she cut off from her singing to ask the nurse adjusting her IV, in a slightly alarmed tone, where her leg had gone. ~

...

Fumiko would fully admit that when Gaara offered to have a sleepover; come back to the room early and set up a fort and watch a movie and play board games, she knew right away it was because he wanted to have an excuse to stay awake and alert, what with Satomi still an uncertain.

But she would also fully admit to taking full advantage of the situation.

It'd been a while since they last had a stayover, after all. Only now, when they huddled underneath the fort with popcorn and chocolate to watch movies on the tv they'd dragged back in, they huddled with the twins, Gaara holding Hiroki in his arms, Fumiko with Hajime lying on her legs, both of them blinking around at their strange new environment, yet perfectly content in their familiar holds.

Sometimes she wondered if they could sense chakras. It would make sense- at this point they would probably be more sensitive to it than most, and it would explain why they didn't even need to be touching to know when their parents were nearby. That would be cool. But there was no way to tell. They couldn't even really smile yet beyond reflex, let alone speak...

"What did you expect, an exploding kunai?"

One other thing she would admit to was that she wasn't really paying any attention to the movie,, sitting curled into Gaara's side with Hajime on her lap and Hiroki within touching distance.

Sometime during the night it had started to storm. Storm bad. The clouds had darkened during Connect Four and thickened when they pulled out Stratego, and when finally they pulled out the old box of movies the skies had opened up with rain and lightning and thunder fit to wash away the ground.

She had always been afraid of thunder and lightning, or at the very least afraid of the noise they made, or the sudden unexpected flash of light. Sudden sights and sounds were, well, sudden. It wasn't even fear, she was just freaked out for the few seconds she was confused and tried to hide. But, well, at this point, there was no point at all in being afraid of anything. Not when she was so close to Gaara.

A lot of scary things over the years had underestimated her best friend, and a lot of scary things over the years had also disappeared. She supposed that by effect that made Gaara a scary thing, technically, but he had never scared her.

No, that was a lie. When they first met and he'd tried to kill her, that was terrifying. She'd been so scared of him she'd thought she would puke. But after that, never. Never, ever. He'd thought he had a few times, she knew, and a couple of times he'd made her scared for him or people around him, but not scared of him. Actually, it had always been the opposite.

He still scared everyone else, though.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Huh?"

Gaara smiled, small and half-drawn. His legs were crossed but he drew them tighter and dropped him chin on her head. She lifted her eyes up to look at him without dislodging his face. "I asked what you're thinking about. Your expression was... odd."

"Lightning and thunder are scary," she said thoughtfully, "And to everyone else so are you."

"That's because I am," he said, and she laughed.

"No scarier than Mai."

"She can be scary too," he pointed out.

"Huh. Maybe."

"Excuse me, Advisor. I don't mean to interrupt, but just for the sake of variety, might we actually hear from the witness?"

...

~ Fumiko lost interest in the answer and looked towards the window, pointed to the sand outside it, and then her head turned and she finally saw them all, and her eyes lit up in the flicker of fluorescent lights. ~

...

She woke up to the sound of three different screams: Hajime's, Hiroki's, and her own.

Gaara was already pulling the blankets away, taking down the minimal rest of the fort to give her air, and she let herself just lie there for a moment, chest heaving, skin slicked over with sweat.

"Are you okay?" he murmured, brushing a bit of sticky hair away from her face. Light flooded in from the window with a sudden lightning strike, and she realized it was still raining. She could hear it pounding the windows and the walls, thick and heavy. That brief light lit up Gaara's face, and he seemed to be ignoring the screams of the children in favor of looking at her.

In her mind's eye, she saw the blood. She saw the moon turning the color of blood, and she saw it staining the cracks in the sand, and staining the skin of her friends. In his teeth she saw it, on his porcelain skin.

"I'm going, Gaara." she whispered, and he blinked, drew back slightly.

"What?"

"I'm going with you. I'm going to fight."

His lips pursed. "What brought that on? What did you dream about?"

Gaara was, if not changing the topic, than skirting around it, avoiding it.

"You knew already," she said. Thunder crashed at the same time, but from the look on his face, she knew he had heard her despite that. "I know you did, Gaara."

Gaara said nothing, eyes bubbling for a second. Then he moved away, rolling back onto his back next to her and staring up at the ceiling. When he said nothing, she sat up quietly, slid off the bed to get her prosthetic and then stood, walking over to the crib and picking up both twins.

"Shh," she murmured. "What is it, babies? What is it, huh? Did mommy wake you up? I'm sorry." Fumiko rocked them gently, speaking in soothing tones, hoping they would be able to go back to sleep with the thunder and the lightning and the rain. Or was that what had woken them up in the first place?

Gaara said nothing, merely listening to her sing and speak and shuffle around like slow pacing. Finally- minutes, maybe even hours later- the twins calmed down, quieted, even fell asleep, Hajime first and then Hiroki, but she put them both back in the crib at the same time.

Then she stood there for a minute, hands on the top of the crib, just staring at them as they slept, tiny chests rising and falling. They looked a little ridiculous in their diapers, as they always did, even the smallest sizes were too big.

There was another flash of lightning and subsequent crash of thunder, but it didn't wake them.

Then it was like somebody pressed play again in Gaara's mind.

"You can't," he said, not even bothering to be quiet. If anything would wake the twins it would be the storm raging outside the walls.

"Yes I can." Sighing, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling the pull as her sleeve pulled down a little away from her wrist. This hadn't been how she wanted to bring it up. It wasn't where she wanted to talk about this. Not after waking up from a nightmare and scaring Gaara half to death in the middle of the night, scaring her kids half to death in the middle of the night.

"You can't." She couldn't see his face in the darkness, not from this angle, but she could imagine the twist from his voice. "You-... don't."

"I'm sorry," she murmured, and moved to sit back down on the bed. "I have to."

"No," he insisted. "Stay here. Stay here and be safe. We don't need you."

Fumiko tried not to let that sting, biting her lip. She knew he didn't mean that in a mean way, or even in a way that was supposed to make her feel like she wasn't needed. In Gaara's mind it was just a fact, and, she had to admit, it was a fact. The war effort really didn't need her.

"I can't," she said. "Gaara, I can't stay here."

"Yes you can."

"How can you even say that?" she demanded. "You of all people know how hard it is to be able to do something but stay behind just because someone told you not to! And it isn't like you ever listen."

"I'm not just someone. Neither are you." His tone was hurt, and she looked down at his face from where she sat, and was startled to see it in his eyes, too. So far as she knew nothing she'd ever said had hurt him. Not even her teasing. "I know I'm not being fair, but- but can you really blame me?"

"I would let you go."

Gaara flinched. "It's just- it's different. I'm the Kazekage, and even aside from that, my sand-"

"I mean if we were switched," she said forcefully, turning to look at him fully. "If I was this all-powerful shinobi and you were just a civilian with fight training and C-rank jutsus. I would let you come."

"That's because you trust too easily!" Gaara sat up, and she was confused for a moment because he actually sounded angry. His nose scrunched as he scowled at her and flung out an arm. "You don't think people can fail! That they can lose!"

Her own anger flared like the white starburst that lit up the room, and she pointed at him in protest. "And you don't trust people enough, Gaara! You don't trust me not to die!"

"You have died!" His voice was exasperated.

Fumiko could feel the flush blooming in her cheeks. "So have you!"

"What about Hajime and Hiroki?" Gaara demanded, and he stood up, shoving off to stand above her on the opposite side of the bed. Fumiko had to crane her neck to look up at him. "It's bad enough that I need to go, but you can't leave them here alone!"

"I need to help, Gaara! I've been training and training. I can fight!"

"You don't need to prove anything to anyone," Gaara said. "Least of all yourself."

"I don't have anything to prove!"

"What then?" he snapped. "You're just one person. It won't make a difference if you're there! All you're going to be doing if you go is putting yourself in unnecessary danger!"

"You're missing the point!" she screamed, really screamed, and Gaara looked taken aback, eyes widening slightly, black rims of his eyes thinning as he did so. Now tears that had built up the entire fight behind her eyes, brimming, spilled over, and she clenched them shut and balled her hands into fists, shaking her head violently. "It doesn't matter that I'll be just one shinobi out of a thousand! I don't care if I get shot down and sent right back here! I don't want to leave the kids here- I don't! But it's because of that that I need to fight!"

"Fumiko-"

"Don't you get it, Gaara?" Now she looked back up at him, eyes hard and sharp as a blade. Her fists clenched even tighter, nails biting into her palms like her teeth chewed away at her lips. "This isn't something that doesn't involve me!... this isn't some stupid mission that I could get killed on when I could've stayed home instead! This is bigger than that- these guys, these Akatsuki, they killed you once! They've... killed so many of the Sand. They'll kill you, and me, and Mai, and Hajime and Hiroki and everyone if someone doesn't do something!"

Gaara softened, blue-green eyes going guilty for a moment. "Fumiko. I understand, really, I do. But you don't always have to be there with me."

"It's not just about supporting you! This is different! It's about everyone! And me! I'm a part of this, Gaara, like it or not. I'm not a shinobi, but I'm going to have to be! Don't you see?" she pleaded, not bothering to swipe away the tears dripping off her chin to the blue comforter. A streak of lightning flashed outside, lighting up the room for a second before fading. "I want to protect everyone! I want to fight for Suna- and I want to fight for you! For you, Gaara- not just with you!"

"Fumiko."

"No! Shut up! You have no right to be getting mad at me!" On the word no her voice cracked with a hitch but she kept going. "You knew I was thinking it! You did! You were just avoiding it! I'm sorry. I should have brought it up but I could just see how sad you looked whenever I tried. And- and I don't want to go to war. There shouldn't even be one. But I- I need to-"

"Stop." His face was ashen. "Just- stop. I have to..."

"Have to what?"

"I have to think."

"Th- what?" She blinked, stunned, as he sat down, so that his back was to her and he was facing the wall. He rubbed at his face, then dropped his elbows to his knees and stared at the sandy floor. After a second passed and he didn't say anything, she got up on her hands and knees and crawled over, hovering uncertainly just behind him. "Gaara..."

"Don't- don't apologize." The rain still pounded outside; even without the thunder it was hard to hear his murmur. "I- I forget, sometimes."

"Forget?" She put a hand on his shoulder. "Forget what?"

"You- you're usually right." He sighed, and kicked at a bit of the sand beside the bed. It stayed in the air, swirling about a foot above the ground, and Fumiko knew just how stressed he was right now, stressed and worried and anxious and miserable. "Even though you trust a lot- you're not stupid. But-" He looked at her, and his eyes were steely, still determined. "But I don't think I'm wrong either."

"No, you're not." With her free hand, she wiped away the wetness on her cheeks. "No, Gaara. I don't think it's wrong to try and protect someone. And in any other situation I wouldn't mind, but- but this is the world." Her fingers tightened unconsciously. "Literally everything we know. And anyway, if you lose, it doesn't matter if I'm there or not."

He smiled at her tightly with no humor. "Yes, I suppose."

"So we're both right," she amended. "And we're both wrong. And we're both trying to save the world, so you know. Stress."

Gaara snorted. "Shikamaru was right," he said. "You're more like a shinobi than I gave you credit for."

Here she smiled, and she could feel it break across her face like a sunrise despite the weather. "Thanks, Gaara."

...

~ She waved in a slow way, like she was underwater. ~

...

Mai wasn't exactly happy when she learned that she would have to get her Chuunin picture for hr ID and get her Chuunin vest in the Chuunin corp.

It wasn't because she was lazy or didn't want to walk any farther than the Tower, and it definitely wasn't because she wanted to stay home all day, not that it seemed like she had much of a choice.

Nah. It was because it was raining puppies and kunai outside, and she was stuck.

So she ended up going stir crazy in her house for the next three days, and then when finally the storm let up she dashed outside- it was still raining, but the lightning was gone and the rain was just normal rain like you would find in Ame or Konoha, and she shunshined to avoid the worst of the rain, but still, when she finally got to Chuunin corp, she was pretty much soaked.

So of course they told her to wait until she was dry because this was an official documentation of her advancement and so she needed to look presentable. Mai was pretty certain that was bull, but still, she didn't want to look like a wet Inuzuka on her profile picture- she could only imagine the shit she would get every time she stopped at an outpost.

So Mai passed the half hour it took for the flames in her hand to dry the rest of her skin both laughing at the sour-slash-angry looks she was getting from the guy at the desk and the more disturbed ones from her fellow waiters in the lobby and tapping her toes absently against the ground to pass the time.

"Okay, I'm dry," she finally was able to tell the man at the front desk. He was pretty average looking, with dark brown hair and plain brown eyes, and he looked both bored and haggard. She wasn't really surprised, given that he probably had to deal with stupid people on a constant, regular basis.

"If you could refrain from setting fires in the lobby in the future, it would be much appreciated," he said dryly. "Go to storage on the second floor, they'll give you your vest."

"I did not set a fire. There's a difference between being on fire and setting a fire. " She grinned. "And it was just my hands, anyway. Also, I was wondering if I could just skip the vest all together and-"

"I'm sorry, miss Mai, but you have to wear your vest for the picture at least."

"But that's stupid," she protested. "I'm not gonna wear it anyway!"

"Rules are rules, miss Mai."

"Stop calling me miss Mai." Mai scowled and crossed her arms. "Oh, I can just tell we're gonna get along soo well. I'm advancing to Jonin as soon as possible after the war is over."

"Storage, Mai-chan."

"Damn, was just rude."

...

~ "Hi!" she cried, happy and contented, and it would have sounded perfectly normal save for the slur in her voice. 

...

There was literally every single size of vest in that room. It was almost scary. And the one she was given fit perfectly, although she had to say that requesting the ones without arm guards had maybe been more trouble than it was worth.

Her chuunin vest was beige, peppered with scroll pouches and pockets and zippered up in the middle, but it lacked any and all bulky neck and arm and waist guards, though she didn't mind the steel in the flak itself. Not that she would ever want to wear it to an actual mission, but if she ever did have to wear it somewhere she would at least have the one most equipped to her fighting style.

Then came picture time.

"Smile for me, Mai-chan."

"Just Mai, thanks."

"That's improper. Now smile."

"You're improper," Mai retorted with an easy grin, knowing full well that was immature and resisting the urge to stick out her tongue just for kicks. "And I am smiling, just take the picture already."

"Smile nicely."

"Nicely? I dunno where've you been, but I've never been smiled at nicely when someone tried to kill me. Also, is there any way I could pay you to let me take this thing off?" She gestured to the vest. "I would rather look like me."

The woman behind the camera pinched her nose. "This is the only picture you're getting. Do you want to brush your hair?"

"Does it look like that would do anything to you?"

"No need for sarcasm, Mai-san. I was just making sure." She sighed, face pinched with irritation. It was an older lady, probably in her hate fifties judging by the grey streaks in her hair. "You wouldn't believe how many people come back for redos."

"There is every need for sarcasm, considering that you just called me Mai-san. Seriously, how hard is that? We're on the same level officially, I don't answer to you, you don't answer to me."

"Are you like this with Lord Kazekage?"

She snorted, then grinned wider. "Every second of every day. And he can't do anything about it."

...

~ Gaara strayed behind on instinct when her parents moved forward to check on her and ask a million questions despite the surgeons' previous rundown of the procedure. Gaara hadn't really understood much of it, and neither, it seemed, had Fumiko.

...

Gaara had said nothing about their fight, or about the war, since the rain stopped. So it was impossible to tell if she'd won, or if he was just tired, and didn't want to fight again. It seemed to drain him completely whenever she stood against his judgement.

But Fumiko didn't really blame him. He was just scared. Everyone was scared. And if she thought about it, really thought about it, she didn't know what would happen if they came back, if Shinobi won and everyone came back together to celebrate and count the dead and there was only one of them left.

Him without her, and her without him. Them without Mai. One with and one gone. The Sand Siblings ripped apart. There was an endless number of possibilities, and an endless count of friends and acquaintances that would probably die.

Or there could be none of them left. Maybe it would just be Mai- because it was hard to imagine Mai dying in a warzone- and she would be alone with the twins, and she would have to explain to them someday that their parents were heroes, martyrs, statistical numbers out of thousands of dead. KIA, or MIA.

There was an impossible chance that they would all come out okay, that out of everyone going in to this war her friends, at least, her family, would come out okay.

Watching her embroidery thread stain with black ink, and watching her own blood drip into the bowl from a little scratch on the inside of her arm, the best place to draw a copious amount of blood without causing permanent muscle damage or even leaving a scar- she tried to make a list, to separate the want to survive from the need to survive.

Gaara. Mai. Kankuro. Temari. Her parents, if there was fallback to the villages, and if her mother joined medic corps. Yoshiki. Baki. Shiragiku and Eishi. Uzumaki Naruto, and Lee, and Neji and Shikamaru. Tenten, Sakura, Ino, Choji, Hinata, Sai. She didn't know Kiba or Shino very well but she did know them. Ame. Tsuchi. Yoshihisa. Matsuri. Sari.

She didn't know very many people. But there were so many others that she remembered the faces of, people she saw every day, shinobi that were kind, kind to her and kind to Gaara.

Carefully she removed the thread, laying it out on a paper towel to dry and glancing back at her sketches of seals, simple storage seals. One for her staff. Two for water. Starting from her wrist, they would spread to the inside of her elbow, on the tip of her new wound, Water, Staff, Water. And she would make a hundred more, a thousand, to put away in the pockets of her vest and in her bag and her pouches.

Seals for lightning and seals for fighting and simple seals for sealing, empty. Exploding tags.

But the seals she had designed to wear were permanent, and not only could they be used more than once, but they were condensed. A condensed seal was painted all over a huge area and pulled tight into a simple scroll that looked like normal scribbles and kanji.

This she'd already done. It had taken a few days, and although she hated it she'd used the nursery floor, rolling up the carpet and pushing it to the side and sketching the magnified seal first in pencil and then in ink before finally shrinking them down to three simple seals on a fingerless glove tailored specifically to be durable, made with the same materials used in shinobi clan's clothes.

It would've been easier to just bring more seals. But this way, she could hold six charges in each seal, and reseal more when they were empty. Six seals in one seal, or rather six compartments folded into a single circle of kanji and ink smaller than her palm. Twelve shots of water big enough to fill a hot spring pool halfway. Six extra staffs that she hadn't built yet.

But from what Fumiko knew of war, she knew that it was filthy. Pictures revealed the grimy circumstance, the blood and the mud and the ash. And seals could be ruined, the ink could run- and the more complicated the seal was, if that happened, the more likely it was to explode, and then she would e minus two limbs, or maybe even dead.

And she figured there was one way to fix that.

While the thread dried- seven entire spools of plain white, strong thread that she'd painstakingly dyed in ink mixed with blood and infused with chakra; seal material- Fumiko patched the shallow cut she'd made with three butterfly bandages and wrapped it in gauze and medical tape. It wouldn't need stitches.

She wiped the sharp end of her staff, the point she'd used to cut it, clean on her shirt and then stood, tucking it back into it's sheath. It was just a myth, after all, that it was impossible to get blood out of white clothes. The laundry staff did it all the time, here in the Tower.

Fumiko didn't know if Gaara had agreed to let her go or not. But, as much as it pained her to admit it, she was going either way. Unless he had her incarcerated there would be no stopping her.

And Gaara wouldn't do that to her. There were things he didn't do, that he wouldn't do. If it was between her physical health and her mental health, she knew he would want her to be happy. She didn't deal well with mental issues, and he knew it, and she knew it.

So, whether he agreed or not, she was going to war. And she needed to be ready when she did.

There were ink smears all over the floor, residue of her first and second attempts at magnification seals, something she'd only ever studied before.

Sugar, she was dizzy. Blood loss, she surmised. Not at the dangerous level, but she was woozy. Fumiko brought a hand to her face, fingers warm like always, to blink and steady herself.

There was a soft sound, a tiny cry, and she went to the back of the room, the corner where the twins laid in their carrier. The corners had been the only part of the room not covered in sealing, and she had learned enough from being around paranoid ninja all the time that often the most unsafe place in a room was near the door.

She picked them up, ignoring the heady scent of bloodied calligraphy ink hanging in the air.

"Easy, easy," she sang quietly. "Easy, loves." And then she looked at them both. Her arm twinged under the bandage Hajime's head rested on, still a sterile white, which was good. "You know I love you," she murmured. "I love you both. So, much." She bounced them lightly. "Know that. Please... know that."

She took a step forward to head towards the door, leave the glove and the drying threads in the room and turn off all the lights, shut the door and bring the twins to their crib, maybe take a nap herself until Gaara got off and came down...

There was a crinkling noise under her shoe, and she glanced down over the heads of her boys to see a square of paper under her sandal.

Fumiko frowned; took a step back of it. She was pretty sure that hadn't been there before when she'd cleared off the floor for the seal. Actually, the power marks of the seal had been right there, so what...?

She knelt, careful to maneuver so the twins ended up on her legs, heads resting on her knees. Then she reached out gingerly until her fingers snagged at the corner and slid it closer along the floor before flipping it over curiously.

The note was written in pointed calligraphy, full of sharp edges and careful lines that could've been traced with rulers. There weren't a great many words written, but they had her stumbling back up, hurriedly adjusting the twins' heads against her elbows again, leaving the page on the carpeted floor and getting maybe two and a half steps away.

I am going to teleport in. Please do not panic.

\- Shometsu Satomi

"Hi. Satomi here." Fumiko whirled, and it was like magic- one second she hadn't been there, the next, Satomi was standing in the middle of her nursery. "So... our conversation was interrupted before."

"Interrupted?" she blurted. "Gaara thought you were trying to kill me or something."

"That would be a reasonable thought," Satomi admitted. "But also not true."

"You asked after me and when the receptionist said you couldn't just go up to my room you teleported to my nursery." As she spoke, Fumiko edged away slightly towards the door, both hoping she wouldn't notice and knowing she already had. Hiroki's head pivoted curiously like he could sense Satomi's strange, multicolored chakra.

"Your- fiance...? Is that the correct term? Has four ANBU in your room right now," she said matter-of-factly. "That is three more than the last time. I told you before, I would prefer not to fight."

"It's his room too," she defended, then shook her head. "Wait- how do you know that?"

"Well, who else would be in there while you two were out?"

"No- how do you know how many ANBU-? Were you in our room?"

"Because..." Satomi's face seemed genuinely confused now, and she cocked her head slightly. "Because I sensed their chakra..? Is that not normal?"

No. No, it wasn't normal for a foreigner to be able to sense unfamiliar even jonin-level chakras, let alone ANBU's with their masking abilities. ANBU could slip past active sensors. ANBU could trail Gaara without his knowing when they had been kids.

Fumiko just tightened her hold on Hajime and Hiroki. "No."

"Oh." Her eyes flickered to the wall, like she could see straight through it to the bedroom. "Well, they should learn to mask their chakra better. They just flattened it, made it less definable. I could not tell who they are, but they are certainly there. Think of it like... two-D image, rather than three-D."

Right, she thought weakly. Just tell the ANBU they needed to work on their chakra masking skills.

Right.

"Hey, Fumiko, can I borrow your-" The door opened carefully, first slowly and then all at once in typical Mai fashion as her sister suddenly filled the room with her rough voice. "sealing... ink... who the hell are you?"

Satomi seemed to wilt slightly. "Must I always be interrupted?" she questioned without looking at her.

"Interrupted? Who're you, anyway? I don't know you."

"My name is Shometsu Satomi. I assume you are a friend of Fumiko's?"

Right away, Mai's hand flickered for one of her sword handles. "Friend?" she demanded. "Fumiko, do you even know this person? Wait, is everything okay?"

She wanted to say no, but she wasn't really sure. Besides, she didn't want Mai to pick a fight with this particular person- fast as she was, Satomi could dissipate and teleport wherever she pleased. While she said she didn't want to fight... Fumiko didn't want to take that chance.

Before she could say anything, Satomi said hesitantly, "I have sealing ink if you need it, miss...?"

"Mitsuwa Mai," Mai growled lightly. The telltale sound of steel, as she pulled her blade up partway, uncertain, suspicious. "I'm her sister."

"There is no need to be hasty, Mai-san," Satomi said hesitantly as Mai's chakra flared, an automatic scan for exits and room sizes and obstacles if a fight should break out. "I am actually here to give information on Uchiha Madara, who you will be fighting soon."

"Uchiha Madara is dead," Mai snapped. "We're fighting some other Uchiha. But how would you know anything, anyway? Everything we have of his is practically fairytales and history books."

"While this body is only around twenty-one, we have lived many, many lives, well beyond the Warring States Era."

There was a charged silence, startled.

"Are you on drugs?" Mai exclaimed and came the rest of the way in the door, slamming it behind her with her free hand. "Or just Schizophrenic?"

"Negative for both assumptions." Satomi was starting to look a little irritated. "I would explain if you would give me the chance-"

"Many, many lives? You're insane." She drew her sword the rest of the way out and it vibrated. Hiroki giggled, strange in the wake echo of it's bark. "How did you even get in here, you crazy-"

"Seeing as though neither of you are going to listen," she said, and Mai tensed. The corner of Satomi's mouth twitched ever so slightly. "Like this."

Mai yelped, loud, when she started to disappear, flaking away like chakra smoke into nothing. Her sword arm fell, and she backed up. "Shit- what-" Eyes narrow, she swiveled to face her. "Okay, am I on drugs? Or did that actually happen? Because if that did happen- explain. Who in hell-"

"It's a long story," Fumiko said shakily. "She works- or used to work, I think- for the Akatsuki."

...

~ "How are you feeling, honey?" her mother questioned, and Fumiko's smile grew in a strange way, covering the entirety of her face in a mindless manner unlike her usual energy.

...

Fumiko woke to the light sound of shushing.

Wiping her face, she yawned, then glanced sideways to the foot of the bed, where Gaara smiled at her, flushed lightly, dressed in his Kazekage's robes and reaching down into the crib, presumably to calm imminent squalling.

"Mm-m-mm," she hummed. "What time is it?"

"Nearly seven," came his quick reply, and he straightened, brushing at his white uniform. He raised an empty bottle, and, sitting up, she could see another lying cleaned out on the corner of the bed. "I just fed the both of them while you were sleeping, so they probably won't be hungry again for a few hours."

"M'kay." Fumiko stretched her arms above her head, then slouched with a huff of contented air. "Going to work?"

"Yes."

"M'kay," she repeated, then swung her legs out to the floor. Carefully she slid to the ground, and Gaara came around the bed's corner to help her down as she fished about for her prosthetic. When finally she set it all up she stuck out her hand, and with a small, answering smile he lifted her up by the arm. "Uff. I'll see you at lunchtime, then."

"I'll be waiting for you."

"Mm." Fumiko tilted her face up for a kiss, and when it didn't come, Gaara momentarily clueless and glancing up in the direction of the clock, bounced to the ball of her foot and tugged on his shoulders until they met in the middle. Caught unawares, he didn't even blush, just closed his eyes after half a second's confusion. "Love you," she said when she pulled away.

He put a hand on her head, which she reached up to touch, and just looked her in the face for a moment before speaking. "You, too."

...

~ "Goo-ood," she sang. "I'm super warm. Where's Gaa-ra?"

...

Breakfast was simple, just some boiled rice and miso soup. It was easier to cook things she could leave on the stove and check on occasionally, rather than engage herself in something intensive that she couldn't step away from for long periods of time.

Even before Temari, Mai stepped in, already with a smudge of oil across her right cheekbone that betrayed her early-morning training. Fumiko glanced out the window, at the sun, it probably wasn't any later than seven thirty or eight.

"Hey, sis," the fire-user greeted, raising two fingers.

"Mew!" her kitten mewled loudly from her shoulder. Cat, as her sister called it, was a little grey Ash Shorthair, chubby-looking with fluff. The breed, she knew, came from up north, nearer to the Land of Snow. She didn't quite know the story, just that Mai had picked up the orphaned stray somewhere and decided to keep it.

"Hi, Mai," she said back. "Hey, can you start the coffee for me? I'm a little late, I needed to change Hajime."

The child in question, along with his twin, was sitting rather happily, it seemed, in the newly arrived baby carrier on the table, a soft sandy yellow embroidered with a glossy tan swirl pattern like eddies. It had a handle and looked a lot like a cushioned seat, and they could tuck blankets and toys into it easily. It was definitely more cumbersome than her pouch, but it was good for times like this, when she was cooking or otherwise stuck doing something she couldn't have the babies with.

Mai grunted. "That stuff is poison," she grumbled, but still headed for the pantry. As the old saying went, she knew where the cups were- along with everything else in the kitchen- and no longer really counted as a guest. Cat, as she ruffled through the pantry, leapt off her shoulder, barely making it to the counter.

"It's been a few days," Fumiko said, stirring deftly through the rice with a wooden spoon before pointing it in the direction of her newly minted Chuunin sister. "Where've you been?"

"Here and there." She pulled away with a jar of coffee grounds in hand, then grinned her way, a shark-toothed smirk. "Actually, I've been getting some prelim stuff now that I'm a Chuunin. Gaara told you, right?"

"Yeah! Nice going on that." Fumiko beamed back. "So you'll be fighting with us, then?"

"Yep." Her arrogant, prideful smirk lightened into something more amused as she crossed across the kitchen to the countertop above the cabinet with the coffee maker. "But I would've anyway, even if I didn't pass the thing. Too many people to keep track of, and anyone that could really keep track of me would be a waste to leave behind."

"I guess. But it's still cool." She bit her lip thoughtfully. "So now... you're emancipated and stuff. Are you going to move into an apartment? Or..."

"I'm not staying here, no." The machine beeped. "I'll find my own place."

"Mrr."

"Oh, excuse me," Mai muttered almost as an afterthought to the cat's disgruntled hiss. It had already wandered near the stove, but stayed well away from the fire, content to sit and stare and basically beg for food scraps. "We'll find our own place."

"Are you going to wait?"

"Nah." Her playful demeanor diminished slightly, and she sighed, leaning back against the counter with her elbows. Fumiko could only see her disturbingly silent expression out of the corner of her eye, morose and pensive, nearly blank. Her eyes tilted to the ceiling, and she shrugged. "I'll stay in a regulated place, so when we come back I can get the same one. Then, I dunno."

"Why?" She turned off the flames on the miso and the rice, then turned to face her, head tilted. "You don't really spend much time there anyway."

"I spend enough time," she answered vaguely, one hand twitching slightly in an aborted wave. "Besides, I need more space for my things. I can't keep everything hidden away under the floorboards much longer, my floor'll explode."

Although the sentiment sounded sarcastic, something led her to believe it was entirely too true.

"So, when?"

"Soon," she said airily. "I haven't got all my paperwork in yet, but as soon as I'm registered and I get my new ID and stuff, I'll be all kinds of legal to file for official emancipation."

Cat finally jumped down off the counters to the floor, skidding slightly on the tile before regaining his balance. He trotted over to Mai's feet, but didn't climb up her body like he often did, instead flicking his tail until it brushed her ankle and sitting, blinking up at Fumiko with it's bright eyes.

"Oh." Fumiko chewed her lip, reaching up to tug lightly on the little canvas bag holding Neji's prism.

"Hey, what happened to your arm?"

"Huh?"

"Your arm." She pointed both her finger and her gaze at the fresh bandaging on her elbow. "What happened to it?"

"Oh, I was- I was making seals."

"Seals with blood?" She grimaced. "Oh. Gross."

Instead of answering, she studied Mai's eyes, which, despite the easy confidence she exuded from her skin, flickered here and there, shadowed and jumpy, only meeting her eyes once or twice in their restless vision. Mai's eyes.

"Interesting. Perhaps you're connected to the bloodline somewhere."

She could remember Sasuke's voice, and his eyes clearly even after so long, his power-riddled heavy chakra the color of bloody mud and lightning, with the same dead electric intensity. They way they had spun red, dragging for only a split second all the power, energy, life from her skin, her veins, her heart, without even the slightest flicker of emotion in his tilted head or his flat mouth.

"Though I can't say it was anything less than stupid to take me on with only two tomoe."

Mai's darting eyes stilled, narrowed on her gaze, a staring contest that it didn't look like she was all too sure she would win. Unlike Sasuke's coal eyes, blacker than oil and duller, her sister's were a lively shade of brown, speckled with gold and lighter shades of chocolate, burning with visible energy.

The sharingan, from what she had so briefly seen of it, withdrew into the eyes with a curious demeanor, the entirety of the blackness of the Uchiha eye concentrating into three solid points- or however many were developed, she assumed- and the red bled in from around the rims, or perhaps it was red underneath the blacked out iris? She wondered, then, if Mai's own tomoe, if she really did have them, would be tinged brown.

There was a loud, shrill shriek that made them both jump, Mai's hand going instantly for the hilt of her sword, Fumiko flinching back into the counter, more instinctively at her sister's reaction than the actual noise herself. Whenever, she had learned, a shinobi twitched, it was smarter to err on the side of caution and hide, or at the very least, move.

She'd survived quite a few assassination attempts that way.

Mai relaxed, though, without even drawing her sword, eyes jerking to the machine behind her. The coffee had finished, that was all. Fumiko suddenly became aware of the intense, loaded silence that had pressed against her ears just moments before. But now the spell was broken, the buildup had dissipated, escaping like air from a popped balloon and draining out the opening door.

"Goddamn this stupid thing, it was just the stupid coffee," Mai muttered.

"Oh, good. Coffee's done. Just in time." Temari had opened the door just as the coffeemaker trilled, eyes heavy-looking in a normal, tired way. She didn't seem to be getting much sleep lately- it seemed like once again she would be the collaboration point between Sunagakure and Konoha, and she was working hard to keep up.

"So's breakfast," she said after a second of blinking confusion, mind slow to catch up to the situation. She smiled, eyes pinching shut for a moment. "Miso soup and rice!"

...

~ "He's... here," the older woman answered uncertainly, and cast a quick look at him over his shoulder. Gaara held back the sigh, knowing all these fearful gestures were useless- if he'd wanted to attack them, he would've. But he didn't. Wouldn't.

...

"Hey, Mai, wait a sec."

The kunoichi paused, caught nearly lifting her foot, arm lifting up, for a simple moment the perfect picture of a shinobi, lithe little muscles defined, coiled, tense like she could flit away with all the whirling grace of a hummingbird. Then she turned, and her hand fell to her hip, heel dropping as she rocked back on the balls of her feet.

Her cat paused as well, meowed irritably at his owner's legs.

"What?"

Kankuro filed past her to the door with a quick sayonara. Temari had already left, eyes open wider and with a weary grin. All that was left to do now was clean up and take a tray up to Gaara, feed the twins, who were starting to fuss as they woke up in their carrier. But.

"Can we... can I talk to you?"

"That sounds ominous," she remarked dryly. "What about?"

"It's just- um. About the Summit." She smiled, a little more hesitant than usual, without teeth. "I want to talk about what happened at the Gokage Summit."

Mai's look was long, lips shifting into a blank line. Tired. Flighty eyes still, quiet.

Then she sighed, and waved her hand over her shoulder, continuing in her step. For half a moment Fumiko thought she was going to avoid everything and go on her way- and it wasn't like Fumiko would be able to do all that awful much about it if she did- but before she could find her words Mai backtracked a few steps and looked back.

"Well?" she said. "Are you coming?"

She blinked once, twice, then jerked slowly into movement, smiling as she picked up the twins' carrier, softly shushing Hiroki who was starting to cry and tickling at his chest with her fingers as she followed her sister in the direction of her bedroom.

Mai opened doors in a peculiar way, stepping back or ducking her head down depending on whether the door opened inwards or outwards, and she could always feel the kunoichi's chakra flare slightly, echolocation in it's purest shinobi form. And then she relaxed, always to just a certain degree, and let the door swing open, always walking in first herself.

This was how she went through the door to her and Gaara's room, hesitant for that flash like something was going to come flying out to attack her. But then she went through like it had never happened, like she hadn't ever been wary of going through a threshold, and flicked on the light. Fumiko followed on her heels, Hiroki starting to cry now in earnest.

Unlike Mai, who stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, looking wired, Fumiko herself followed Cat the cat and sat down on the bed, scooting to the middle of the mattress so she could pull off her prosthetic and sit cross-legged with the sock still attached and so she could pull down her top and pick up Hiroki to feed him.

Mai watched her, carefully, an action Fumiko didn't even notice until she looked back up, holding the now more than two pound baby's head steady with one hand, his body with the other. Hajime, still content but not sleepy, winked out at the world like an explorer.

There was a silence, then, and an awkward one at that. Fumiko was used to cutting straight to the point- in this case, Do you have a sharingan or not? - but Mai, however, preferred to dance around uncomfortable topics, rewind and lead the brain in circles until the conversation shifted in another direction. Maybe something more subtle would be better, like Mai, what exactly happened at the summit between you and Sasuke?

But that, she realized with a mild bit of concern, sounded just as pushy and direct as the first question. She bit her lip, dragging it between her teeth for a moment, weighing the options-

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?"

"Wha- wha?" At her startled stutter, Mai's arms tightened in their cross, fingernails pinching into the skin of her elbows until they turned whiteish-tan under the pressure, and she scowled. Never once in her life had she heard her sister apologize, except for maybe once- "I don't- I'm sorry, Fumiko, but we can't go back there."

"I said I'm sorry," she grunted. Hesitated, then sighed slightly, air still trapped in her chest. "So quit looking at me like that, okay?"

"What?" she repeated, then shook herself mentally. "I mean, why are you sorry?"

"My- you know. My thing. My- bloodline." Her nose scrunched with distaste. "That Uchiha thing."

"Why didn't you tell me you had the sharingan, Mai?" That, perhaps, had been the most pressing question following whether she'd actually had it or not. Because Mai, contrary to popular belief, wasn't usually a very closed-off person unless something was hurting her, physically or mentally. Otherwise if something bugged her, you would no.

This shouldn't have been eating at her. And if it had been... Well, where Fumiko hadn't known her sister before, she was pretty sure she did now. At least a little. The quiet intensity with which she tried to overpass and protect everyone. The secrets she held as an ANBU. Why she would hide this from her, knowing that she knew what she knew, was beyond her.

"Actually, I wasn't planning on telling anyone at all." Mai scowled. "I wasn't planning on using it at all. Unless it was the last resort. The only reason you found out is because it was Sasuke and I was pretty sure he would kill my ass anyway."

"You weren't... anyone?" Fumiko was bewildered. "Why, though? Are you embarrassed about it? I mean it's really strong and stuff, so why would you hate it so much?"

Mai sighed. "I hate bloodlines," she admitted. "They're just not fair. And don't give me that 'life's not fair' bullshit, because I know it's not, but bloodlines are just... like cheating." At her blank look, Mai's eyes narrowed again and then rolled, frustrated. Her hands came off her elbows to gesticulate. "They don't have to work for it. They don't have to try for it. They just have it, and sometimes that makes them automatically stronger than everyone else."

"But I thought you could train the sharingan?" Hiroki, full of milk and once more growing fussy with sleep, kicked until she moved him away from her chest. Instead she tucked him into her arm, something warm to hold, something comforting.

"You can train the sharingan, but not for it. Do you think Sasuke would be half as strong as he is without his stupid bloodline? He wouldn't be able to use Amaterasu, would be vulnerable to Genjutsu, wouldn't have Susano'o armor, wouldn't be able to use Mangekyo Tsukoyomi to put people in nightmares- hell, he would be just like the rest of the world! He probably wouldn't be half as good at Katon, for crying out loud!"

Fumiko opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off as Mai swung out her arms angrily, almost defensively. "Mai-"

"Would I be worse? Is the bloodline in my body the only reason I can use Katon? Does it make me stronger?" Her voice was rising, decibel by slow decibel. "I want to be stronger by my own power! I don't want people to look at me and think, 'oh, she's got the sharingan, better watch myself!'" Mai's tone was thick with sarcasm, and she tilted her head, scowl shifting wide, crossing her arms once more. "'She's from the genius clan of the leaf's bloodline! Maybe I should be careful when I fight her!'"

"You don't want to be recognized for it," Fumiko realized. "That's why you hide it. You don't want to give yourself an unfair advantage over others- nothing that they couldn't get themselves-"

"I'd rather be stronger than someone just for that," she said, volume slipping from angry ranting to normal peevishness. "Because I'm stronger, I trained harder, I'm smarter, whatever. They can't get around the fact that I'm stronger than them, that they should respect me, even if they don't. Like I said, Sasuke would be just another shinobi without his bloodline. You think I want people going around saying the same about me?"

"Of course not." Fumiko said quietly, and now she tucked Hiroki back into the carrier with his brother, then folded her hands over her lap. "But, still... people wouldn't judge you for it. At least, not us. Not your friends. Why didn't you tell me? Or Gaara? Or..."

"Uchihas are bastards," Mai spat. "The only things they're known for are fighting on the wrong side of the creation of a village, their sharingan abilities and Katon, the fact that one of their own slaughtered their own kin- and now Sasuke, who's just as much of a bastard. That name doesn't have anything but bloodstain."

"But you're not an Uchiha," she argued. "You just have Uchiha blood!"

"Same difference!" Mai took a few steps back, still hugging her arms in close to her knees. The sunlight lit on her black hair, the wild curls turning white in every piece of contact. "You don't know! I'm just as rotten as he is, but at least I paved my way with good intentions and not just blood! As soon as people know, that's what they'll say. Now everything makes sense. Gaara was horrified, wasn't he? Stunned beyond belief. I know you told him."

"Of course I told him. Gaara doesn't care-"

"He does. Not enough to hate me, but he does." Now her arms dropped to her sides, first rigid so that she looked almost at attention, then loosely as she exhaled, muscles coming undone. "I dunno if you've noticed, but he loathes that name. I don't blame him. Dishonored, bloody, ill-intended, full of hate. Powerful, only to use that power to hurt people."

"Mai," Fumiko said sternly, and also kind of softly- "I dunno if you've noticed, but I have the same blood as you."

Her sister froze in the little patch of sunlight, and her hands worked, fisting and unfisting, nails digging into her palms. Her jaw tightened, and she rocked slightly onto the heels of her feet, and she could feel, see the anger the words made seethe under her skin.

"That is not the same thing," she finally murmured, and her voice was chilled like ice. To anyone else, it would seem like a threat. "We are not the same kind of people, Fumiko."

"Neither are you and Sasuke."

She gave a little laugh, for once not scornful or sarcastic, just a soft little quiet sound. "You would think that, wouldn't you?"

Obviously, she didn't. Fumiko worried at her lip again, fingers twisting against her thighs, confused. What was the block here? What was she missing? What was her sister so scared of, so protective of? It didn't make sense. It should've been obvious; Mai didn't go around killing people for no reason, she was never intentionally cruel to anyone who didn't deserve it, she tried to be considerate of the people around her that she cared about...

What parallel was she drawing between herself and Uchiha Sasuke?

The only thing those two had in common were their eyes. And even those were different. Sasuke's eyes had unlocked Mangekyo, the one feature of the Sharingan bought by abandoning everything close to your heart.

"Can... can I see it?" She twisted the white fabric of her shirt between her fingers, gazing determinedly at her sister, who blinked.

"What?"

"Your eyes." She nodded. "Can you show me?"

"Uh... why?"

"Because I want to see them," she replied, trying hard to keep the natural curiosity out of her voice, but also the demanding tone she knew might color her inflections if she let it. Mai hadn't told her, and she hadn't told her because she was ashamed of it. She wasn't about to force her to show it off. "Can you do it on command? Or is it just like a life-or-death thing? Since you haven't really trained with it I don't know if-"

"Yes, I can turn it on. Like a goddamn light switch."

Fumiko patted the space on the bed in front of her, on the edge so her sister would feel safer- shinobi, she'd come to notice, liked to either have their back to things or be on the edge of things, both, if possible. Her sister, despite her young age, was no exception. Mai hesitated, then moved forward, and gently Fumiko moved the carrier to rest beside her, where she could put a hand in to touch her twins.

Gingerly the katon-user sat, angled so one sword hilt dangled over the edge and the other laid out flat behind her on the comforter. Then, at Fumiko trying-not-to-be-but-probably-hopeful look, she sighed, and closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again, still brown.

And then her irises started to fizzle and draw in towards her pupils, which separated and spun, bubbling apart like floating oil in water. They seemed to darken, sucking in the flecked coffee of her eyes, unveiling a layer of red. In the light, the tomoe compressed, contracting into the small, fine comma-marks they were known for, spinning slightly for a second before they seemed to click into place.

Mai blinked again, rapidly, before looking at her straight on. "There," she muttered. "See?"

"They're different," Fumiko blurted. She'd been meaning to say that anyway, whether they were hugely similar to Sasuke's or not, but this close up, she could see that they really were different than Sasuke's. The tomoe's black wasn't quite so deep. Against the red, it was harder to tell, but after having up-close experience with the sharingan, she knew.

"Different?" Her sharingan eyes narrowed. With the suspicion in her gaze the two tomoe spun, and she scowled, raising a hand to her face. "I- sorry, I didn't mean to do that-"

Whatever 'that' was, she wasn't sure, but she grabbed at Mai's hand, pulled it away from her eyes, leaned forward to touch her sister's tanned skin with the other. Mai flinched, but tensed, not trying to pull away. Fumiko thumbed the corner of her left eye, staring.

"Your tomoe are tinged brown," she exclaimed.

"My what are what?"

"The little black things in the center," she explained quickly. "Sugar, in all the sharingan pictures I've... Sasuke's are just black. Yours are too, but they're- less black. The tomoe in the eye must absorb the iris! Nobody's ever been able to tell absolutely for sure, since you can't distinguish an Uchiha's iris from the pu... sorry," she said sheepishly.

"... Okay." Now she reached up to push away her hand with two fingers, and Fumiko let go of her wrist and let herself fall back down onto her butt. "Does that mean something, at all?"

"Your vision might be diluted," she speculated, bringing a hand to her head. "Or something, but I dunno. I only read the research papers, I didn't write them."

"Research papers?" she demanded.

"But, Mai! This is great!" Her hands clapped together. "So far as we know you're the only sharingan user without black eyes, so yours are completely different from every other Uchiha's!"

Immediately, the tomoe in both of Mai's eyes drew together, and out of them seeped the brown she knew so well, covering over the red like a film, completely hiding it all the way to the whites of her eyes. They dilated back to their normal size and shape, and then vanished completely as she closed her eyes and shook her head.

When they opened again, Mai looked away, staring at a fixed point on the floor. Fumiko knew that she wanted to cross her arms again, give herself something to let her arms do, her muscles do, but she didn't, refraining herself to just curling her fingers against her thighs. "They still do the same thing," she said. "I still got them the same way. So what if they look different?- I look different than a Uchiha. Mostly."

"We don't know if they do the same thing or not," Fumiko mused. "But I don't think they'd be any stronger than the average... wait. You got them the same way?"

In the Konoha archives, and in the hospital archives, there were tons and tons of studies and research experiment write-ups on the Sharingan. They ranged anywhere from two to four or five generations up, back when the citizens of the leaf had gotten suspicious of it, probably, or maybe a village elder who wanted to see if it could be replicated, stolen, nullified... Either way there were many, and sometimes, the people at the desk- depending on which person was accompanying her- let her pass into the higher levels.

She remembered almost everything she read, especially if it was something that interested her. She liked learning about jutsu, the way the chakra worked, ins and outs- and anyway she tried to learn as many things as possible about Uchiha Sasuke and even just stuff in general, because who knew who would need that information?

One entire report- an incredibly long, detailed report probably compiled of dozens of different observational data over time- had detailed the process from a civilian eye to a primary, secondary, and final stage, fully matured. There had been nothing about the Mangekyo, something that Fumiko wondered was common information even amongst the clan itself, while they were still alive.

When an Uchiha experiences a powerful emotional condition, usually with regards to a person precious to them, she remembered one passage in particular had read, their brain releases a special form of chakra that affects the optic nerves, transforming the eyes into Sharingan; for that reason the Sharingan is described as an "eye that reflects the heart." Often, as per the Uchiha's so-called "Curse of Hatred", this emotion is a negative one, brought on by stress or loss.

"Yeah." Mai gave her an odd look. "I'm pretty sure there's only like one way to do it."

"When did..." Her hand drew up to her neck, to the pouch and braided leather around it. "I mean, how did..."

Her sister stared at her for a moment, and then sighed.

"Do you remember," she said, eyes diverting again, this time to her hands, and she picked up Cat as she spoke, who meowed softly as his owner dropped him in her lap to pet him absently. "After the Invasion of the Peins, how you said you met someone in the afterlife, but you couldn't remember who it was?"

"Yeah."

"That was-" Here she paused, was silent, then swallowed. "You met my- I mean he was my- He was my Taicho. From- from Shadow Corp. He died during Akatsuki's attack on Sunagakure, on patrol with the rest of my unit, when Yura went bat shit crazy."

Her eyes widened, but before she could open her mouth and speak past her suddenly dry tongue, her sister plowed on, voice an odd mix of shaky nerves and dead acceptance. "I found out- later, like way later, after I got back from Konoha, you know, after Kankuro was okay. That he had died, I mean. I'm glad I had my- my mask on, at least, that kept it hidden when my eyes kind of- you know."

She gestured to her face.

"Mai..."

"And- you know- there was a funeral." Mai was zipping past her sharingan, face still with that strange expression, like she might just laugh if she wasn't so ancient. "It wasn't like we didn't find him, not like some of the others. Yura had stabbed him, he didn't get all caught up in the explosion and stuff like that, but it didn't really matter because I burned him-"

"You what?"

"I- burned- him," she repeated, slowly. "Incinerated him, actually. No shroud or anything like that. I think Rabbit got his ashes, but whoever it was, they probably just dashed it around in the desert. I wasn't there for- I mean I didn't do it for my other teammates. It's what happens when ANBU die. Id've thought you knew, working the desk after so many deaths."

"I-"

"Isn't it funny, though," she kept on, expression unchanging and blank, "I was supposed to be on that Unit, with them. Instead I got the Sharingan, and, I dunno, some chakra exhaustion, maybe-"

"Mai-"

"I'm getting off topic, though," she said suddenly, and her head whipped up, voice all at once louder than it had been just seconds before. "The second one, I was dying in the Invasion of Pein and-!"

Whatever she was going to say next whuffed out of her lungs as air as she jerked forward, mostly involuntarily. Mai was almost taller than her, now, but it didn't matter. She just wound her thin arms around her sister's shoulders as her face dropped into her collarbone. Her sister made a little confused sound, and then was silent.

Cat wiggled away, padding a few inches across the comforter before lying down.

"Never mind," Fumiko whispered. "Never mind, I don't want to know, you don't have to tell me."

Mai slumped. "There's a lot you wouldn't want to know," she said, though it was muffled, and her sister didn't try to move her mouth away from her shirt and her skin to speak clearer.

"I'm sorry."

"I've killed thirty two people." Mai murmured that like it was a secret, pulling out of her lips while she was tired or drunk or otherwise unaware of what she was saying, like from a dream. "Three of them, my age."

"I'm sorry," she repeated, because she didn't really know what else to say. For once, she was out of words.

"Most of them were bastards. But some of them weren't."

She knew if she apologized again Mai would tell her not to, and maybe break this fragility that was her younger sister, so she just held her, and prayed the twins wouldn't start to cry. This wasn't even, she realized, Mai without her shield. This was Mai with a cracked shield, slivers spilling out through the webs.

It hurt. It hurt like it had hurt to watch Gaara grind bodies to dust, and then to stand before his fellow villagers while they knew he'd done so. It hurt like it had hurt to see him trying to stab himself, asking why he couldn't be loved.

It hurt to know that her sister was hiding so much.

She was thirteen.

It wasn't right.

"Fumiko," Mai mumbled against her shirt, still limply unmoving. It wasn't a question, but it sort of was, like she wasn't sure if she was actually there or not. It sounded like a question, feather-dull voice or not.

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm going insane."

"That's okay," she promised, and tightened her hold on her sister, who didn't respond in the slightest. Her skin was warm to the touch. "That's okay, Mai. I think the rest of the world is, too."

...

~ "Hey- hey, Gaa-ra, lookit my stitches. They're huge." ~

...

Eventually Hajime cried, and Fumiko fed him before setting both gakis down into the crib she'd hauled to the foot of the bed.

They'd realized, then, that a crapload of time had passed, and Fumiko had apologized, reluctantly excusing herself. "I forgot to bring Gaara his breakfast," She'd explained, almost tripping backwards out the door. "He probably doesn't even know he's starving."

And now she was alone on the comforter- well, with the exception of Cat- wiping at her face and realizing with no small amount of horror that she'd cried into her sister's shirt.

That had been a strange moment. A deathly one, like she hadn't been existing, there, except for in the points where her skin touched Fumiko's, where the warmth bloomed. But there'd been nothing else, no rushing in her mind, no twisting in her gut, no trippy paranoia chakra-scanning everything and taking note of the exits.

She hadn't even felt herself speak, only heard her own voice.

She'd talked like an idiot. Like a first-year greenie Genin who'd just killed a rabbit for supper. It wasn't like other people didn't have it worse. Twenty-nine people and a few minors was nothing compared to some older shinobi, or even- especially- compared to Gaara. Nor was the death of a single loved one, and she hadn't even known his face until way after she'd figured out he'd died.

And where had all that bullshit about bloodlines come from? When did it become okay to whine about having a strong ability? It was stupid and irrational.

But then again, it was Fumiko. It wasn't like she knew the difference between rational and illogical to begin with. And believe it or not, she wasn't spectacular with telling emotion, either- the best she could do was notice when something was off, never why, unless it was Gaara, because she knew all Gaara's faces, voices and tells. It was why she asked, why she couldn't help but ask.

So of all the people she told, it might as well have been her older sister. She would take that and absorb it and frankly, do nothing with it but understand, wouldn't ask her to go to therapy or go into detail or offer her own advice. She would tell Gaara, and the idea of that made her flush with shame, because she would always tell Gaara.

But that was the only person she would ever tell, likely even if she'd had permission to talk to people about it.

She was a little worried about Gaara, though. He was a shinobi as much as she- more so- one that she looked up to- and so he wouldn't push or prod or wheedle, but he would watch. And he was the Kazekage. He could put her on forced mental leave, thin out her missions, try even to hold her back from the coming fight.

And she also just- didn't want him to know. That was stupid too, she knew. It wasn't like Gaara was the perfect ninja either. He was extremely emotional, moreso than some, even if it didn't seem like it. He had an outlet that would never judge him, and Mai knew that she could have one, too.

She didn't know if it was pride, or if it was because she liked the light she was painted in, or because she didn't know how to not keep the hurt, or even if she just didn't want to bother anyone else. Maybe it was just her training messing up her head. Maybe...

She jumped at a sound, then relaxed and realized it was only one of the twins whining. She was already near the crib, black and sleek and totally not what they would've gotten if Fumiko had picked it out instead of Gaara, so she leaned over it hesitantly.

Both were awake, and Hiroki was fussing more than his older brother, but neither sounded like they actually needed anything. But she also recognized enough to know that they would work themselves up to a froth if someone didn't hold them.

Mai propped her chin up on her knee. "Join the club, kid," she told him. "Sometimes we just have to deal with shit."

She knew, on some level, that once these gakis were old enough to really process what she was saying she was going to have to really curb her language, because as funny as it would be she didn't think Gaara would really appreciate it if one of his kids' first words was a swear.

At the sound of her voice, Hiroki whined even louder.

"Trust me, you don't want me to hold you," she muttered. "One of these days I'm gonna drop you and you'll pop. Or something."

There was another few minutes, where maybe they would calm down and go to sleep again, like Hajime seemed to be doing. But then all at once Hiroki started to cry, a loud, snotty, shrieking sound that made her cover her ears on instinct.

"Damn it, you have lungs!" Mai scowled. "Fumiko will be back in, like, ten minutes!"

This, unfortunately, didn't assuage the gaki. And she knew Temari wasn't here- she had gone off to Konoha and wouldn't be back for two weeks at the least- and that Kankuro was off on a two-day thing, she hadn't really paid attention enough to know what his mission was. So nobody would come rushing in here to soothe it. Him. Soothe him.

Hesitantly she reached a hand into the crib, leaning over the side from where she sat on the bed, and touched him like she saw Fumiko do sometimes, just touching at his chest and stomach with a handful of fingers.

His skin was unbelievably soft. Infants, she'd come to realize, were ridiculously fragile, not durable in the slightest. Even Fumiko's skin was more calloused than theirs, from all the sand blowing about that they hadn't yet been exposed to. Against her clean, but definitely beat up hand, it felt bizarre.

"Hey, shut up now, okay?" she said, but her godson didn't shut up, waving his arms about until he caught hold of her thumb and then not letting go, and continuing to cry. "Kami, you're so loud. Was I that loud?"

Even more hesitantly, she reached her other arm in, and carefully picked the child up, supporting it's head like everyone was telling her to because they were so freaking breakable that they couldn't even lift their own heads yet, and then scooted back on the bed to avoid dropping him to his death.

And then she just kind of held him, awkwardly jolting her arms up and down in a mimicry of what everyone else did. Was it because she was infertile? Did you have to be fertile to have those instincts? It was probably because she was used to hanging out with people who could survive an exploding tag to the face.

But eventually her nephew started to quiet, still kind of huffy and peeved but not as loud. If he could speak, or control his muscles very well, she could imagine him rolling his eyes. Took you long enough.

"I'm going to be such a bad influence on you," she told him. "Little terror. Guwaa Warugaki."

Abruptly she frowned at him, memory shooting to the forefront of her mind unpleasant and unexpected.

"Miss? Miss, I'm scared."

It was annoying, the little flashes. Some of it was smeared from Sakura's jutsu, but it was enough to be extremely irritating. The way the pink-haired medic had explained it, whatever she'd dreamed was literally traumatic enough to shut her everything down. Brain damage equaling a vegetable.

She knew, whatever the parts left out, well, left out, that the majority of it had been Sasuke slaughtering both her friends, family, and even complete strangers. Her home. But she wasn't afraid of Sasuke- okay, maybe she did shiver a little at the thought of coming face to face with his eyes again- she would refuse to feel ashamed about that, he'd put her in a goddamn traumatized coma for crying out loud.

But she wasn't afraid of Sasuke, or at least she hadn't been before he'd sicced that nightmare on her. And she'd researched the sharingan for obvious reasons; she knew that the Mangekyo Sharingan- while she hadn't known about it before the event of seeing them- supposedly showed you your own worst nightmare, your biggest torment, your fear.

So she had to surmise, looking at Hiroki and listening to Hajime fall asleep, her nephew's eyes staring straight at her, that it was something to do with death. But everything was still fuzzy. Maybe it was watching them die? She'd been pinned, hadn't she? Helpless.

Hiroki made a sound, something like a gurgle, or maybe a sneeze. She looked back at him intently, careful to keep his head and body tucked into her arm.

Maybe he was a porcelain doll now, but someday, he'd grow. And he would be strong. There was no way he wouldn't be, with Gaara as his father and shinobi as his family. His brother would be strong, too. Nobody even knew yet if they had Magnet Release. Bloodlines aside... They already had huge chakra stores. Any child of Gaara, and even moreso any child of Fumiko, would have huge chakra stores.

So they wouldn't need to be protected for too long. That didn't mean she wouldn't, jsut that they wouldn't need it. Sasuke knew they existed. But this wouldn't be like in her dream. Even if she was immobile, she was pretty sure the only reason she hadn't escaped was because it was just that- a dream. An illusion.

It was something to think about, though. Enough that she started to wonder what would have happened if she'd used her sharingan during that freaky-ass nightmare.

...

~ "Honey," her father started, shooting him a dark look completely different than her mother's nervous habit. "I don't know if that's such a good-"

...

It was three am when Gaara finally pushed his paperwork away and went to the bedroom to sleep.

It was three am when he realized the lights were on in his room, and it was three am when he opened the door and found Fumiko sitting quietly on the bed with a needle in her hand and a long trail of thread spilling off the side of the bed and coiling on the floor stiffly. There was a basket on her nightstand, tightly woven and flooding over with the same stiff black thread.

In her hands she held what looked like a white glove, and she was threading the needle into it over and over. Looking closer, Gaara realized that she was sewing over an already existing design, made with ink. A seal.

"What are you doing?"

She didn't even look up, but he did see her smile, if not a little tiredly. "Making my seal permanent. The thread's dyed with seal ink."

"Oh." His eyes caught her arm as she pulled it up, needle in hand, to tug the thread tight. He couldn't see the bandage with her long sleeves, but he knew it was there, hand spotted it the day after the storm had ended. "... Are they sleeping?"

Now she looked up at him, fingers stilling. "Yes." Her lips quirked up in a smile, less tired, but then it faded just slightly, like an old, worn photograph. "It's for- water, and a few extra staffs. I haven't made them yet, but I will. Y'know- in case one breaks or something."

"... Fumiko..."

"We need to be honest, Gaara," she said, and then looked back down, fingers resuming their work. "I mean, we could really die. And we have to figure something out together, a place for Hajime and Hiroki to stay when we leave. And I need to sign up. Which means I need to be a shinobi. Which means..." she continued before he could interrupt. "That we need to work together for this, Gaara."

"I know." he said, and then he was quiet for a second. And then he sighed, and Fumiko looked up at that sigh and at the crinkle of paper as he reached into a pocket of his robes he hadn't yet shed. And she blinked as he unfolded them.

"What's that? Did you put something in your pockets you weren't supposed to again?"

He stared at her name, and at the tiny print of numbers right beside it: 62-03.

And he held them out for her to take, held them out so she could have them before he burned them, before he recalled it, before he could think of all the ways this could go horribly, horribly wrong, and as she looked at him, curiosity and concern in her eyes, he said, "No."

...

~ "Gaa-ra," she demanded still with that grin; it didn't really seem like she'd even processed his words. "It's all red." He moved closer, skirting the bed to the other side to avoid standing directly beside her parents, and her head turned, completely forgetting, it seemed, about the fresh new stump of her calf. "There you are!" she exclaimed, flinging up her hands. "I thought you dis-app-eared."

...

It was familiar, the gentle, hushush sound of a paintbrush on canvas.

She'd been finishing this final commission in fits and starts. Her glove, almost completed, lay hidden in her nightstand drawer, and another cut staff, already partially partly carved out, waited in the pseudo-nursery, her new, temporary workshop. She probably wouldn't need six staffs, so perhaps she could make one or two and then use variant weapons with the same wood that the seal would still accept...

She sat on a stool in her bedroom, painting on the final dabs of color across the last few flowers. The mist was done, the mountains, the sky, most of the field, most of the shading. She'd been here for hours, but it did't seem like it'd been long enough.

Hajime and Hiroki were in their crib just beside her. She wouldn't say she wasn't wary of Satomi, despite her words, and she didn't want to leave the twins unattended anywhere or be too far from them if there wasn't someone else to watch over them.

She was just putting the final kanji to her signature MF when there was a light rap on her door. "Lady Fumiko?"

She recognized Tadashi's voice. "Yeah? Oh, come in, it's fine."

The door opened, and Tadashi stuck his head in, eyes flickering everywhere at once for a moment to scan the room before falling back to her. "I just got a message from Tsubaki-san downstairs. Lord Baki is waiting to talk to you on the lobby. He says it's urgent."

"Did he say what it was?" Fumiko put her paintbrush down on the stand and stood, wiping uselessly at her pants to smear off some of the paint on her hands. "Did something happen?"

"Not so far as we know," he said with a stiff shrug. "Everything appears to be fine. He just wants to speak with you."

"Okay. Tell him I'll be down in a minute."

As the door closed, she turned towards the crib, and the carrier at the foot of it. "Come on, kids," she said, leaning over the top to pick up Hiroki. "Let's go visit your uncle Kankuro, huh?"

...

~ "No, I've been here the whole time."

...

After leaving the twins with Kankuro in his workshop, Fumiko headed downstairs to the lobby. As she made it halfway down she could pick him out from the crowd, standing almost impatiently off to the side of the main floor room, to the left of the door.

"Ne, Baki!" she called and waved, clunking the rest of the way down the stairs, catching several people's attention, but they looked away soon enough once they knew the source of the curious greeting. Baki looked up as well, and detached from the wall to meet her halfway across the floor.

He smiled, the light, almost strained kind that the older shinobi tended to smile with, but it was genuine. "Fumiko-sama. It's been too long. How are the children?"

"They're good!" She smiled. "And it's been forever, Baki! I don't think I've seen you since- it's just been too long! But, um..." She tilted her head curiously. "What did you need? Tadashi said you needed to talk with me?"

"Can we walk?" he asked instead of answering, and without waiting for a reply he turned and headed for the main doors, hands tucking into his pockets. Fumiko started and followed after him, making her way through the crowd and to the door without bumping into anyone, not really an achievement since people tried hard now not to collide with any of the Kazekage's family.

Finally she broke out of the crowd into the baking sunlight. Sand bit at her cheeks, whipping her hair over her shoulder immedietly, gusting through her clothes, tight though they were. "Baki! Wait up!"

He didn't stop, but he slowed down when she caught up so they could walk side by side.

After a moment spent with her curiously glancing up at his face every now and then before looking back down at the sand to keep from tripping, Baki finally spoke.

"Gaara told me about your argument," he said. "I'm sorry that happened."

"Me too."

"But he admitted to me that you were right. Gaara really does value your opinion, Fumiko-sama." He cast her a sideways glance, not unfriendly. "I agree as well. You should be allowed to fight if you so wish, as with anyone else."

"Baki, where are we going?"

"Just somewhere with more fresh air," he didn't sound sarcastic despite the words/ "Not far, just to one of the balconies."

"Oh." Fumiko was silent for a moment, looking out at the sandy desert environment of people and tight, tall buildings, thinking. She bit her lip, considering. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Here we go." He stopped beside a building, one of the outposts near the Tower for watch. Baki opened the door first, to let her in, and she walked inside quickly, turning to face him as he closed the door. "There shouldn't be anyone else up there."

She followed him up the stairs without a word, confused. When they reached the top to the catwalk ledge, he opened the door, and this time he stepped inside first, much like Mai with his immediate cursory take-in of the area before opening it the rest of the way to let her through, and she stepped out into the air once more. Heat permeated this place, pressing tight to her skin.

"Okay, Baki." she said when he closed the door, turning once more to watch him. "What did you really want to talk about?"

"The rules say that you have to be at minimum a Chuunin to fight in an officially declared war," he explained without further ado. "This rule was put in place to keep the political powers above us to use children and those not ready for the battlefield from going out unprepared and getting themselves killed. It's to protect the next generations of ninja."

"I know," she said. "It's why Mai had to take that Chuunin test."

Baki nodded. "But," he said, "There are certain exceptions to that rule. For instance, many of the advisors on the Head's council aren't Chuunin or even Jonin themselves. Many are simply Genin, and a few are even civilians with familial ties to ninja. This way, we can connect to both aspects of the village- the civilians and the shinobi."

"So you mean that if someone high up in the Kage business of running the village could go if they wanted?" she asked curiously. "Even if they aren't Chuunin? I guess that makes sense. I mean it isn't like they're helpless."

"Exactly." Baki nodded again. "But they have to be registered as ninja, at the very least."

"Well, yeah. If you were never a ninja, even if you know ninja and how they work, it doesn't mean you know how to defend yourself, or if you can put anything into action." Fumiko reached up to tug on her necklace. "They can get a promotion to Genin, can't they? Like I did. If the Kazekage- Gaara- thinks they'd be okay?"

"You already know that Gaara registered you as a Genin without following the system. There was no test for you, nor was there any other kind of observation. He can't do the same thing to make you Chuunin- at least, not until the war starts and we're in a declared state of emergency. Then he could promote you in the field."

"Right. I asked him about it and he said he would try."

This time Baki shook his head. "He spoke to me about it, which is why I'm here. Gaara-sama couldn't bring himself to prepare to do this on his own."

"Do what?" she asked, but before she even closed her mouth her eyes widened, and she bit her lip hard enough to aggravate a sore. "Wait, I'm Gaara's second in command. Does that mean..."

Baki didn't nod nor shake his head this time, though he did watch her with a cool kind of observation. "Fumiko-sama, as both a Genin and Gaara-sama's official Second, you can fight."

His hand, which had stayed tucked into a pouch on his side- a kunai pouch, perhaps, or to hold exploding notes, at least that's what it'd looked like at first glance- pulled out, and in his fingers he loosely held a strip of dark blue fabric.

"Is that...?"

It was in her hand before she could even reach for it, and as Baki's hand pulled away, her fingers curled around the metal lightly, fabric trailing out into the air. In the wind, the tails swayed. She could see her own flabergasted expression in the shiny steel forehead protector, face marked by the perfectly carved kanji in the center.

"'Shinobi'?" she read softly.

"It's symbolic. As an Alliance, there will be one force, not many. We will fight together, and not as separate parts."

So it was happening.

And now that it was, she wondered briefly if she'd ever really wanted to win.

A heavy hand fell on her shoulder, and she looked up with wide eyes at Baki, whose mouth pinched slightly. "I wish you luck," he said. "I truly hope you survive, Fumiko-sama."

"I will," she said with a firm nod. "We all will. We have to."

His expression turned grim, but he managed a small smile, wry and dry. It was a hard smile, marred by experience and common sense that she refused to accept, common sense he'd gained on the field, and the guardedness that came from hoping far too much, far too many times. "Let us hope so."

...

~ "I know." she smiled again, eyes unfocused, and giggled suddenly. "It was all the doctors could talk about!" ~

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Satomi makes a COMEBACK


	21. Tension

...

~ That little girl only had and always would bring nothing but trouble. ~

...

Everything- everyone- was was speeding up.

It was like after she'd given birth, everything outside had paused, and it was just them, themselves and the twins. Everything was normal, Mai trained, Temari ran messages, Kankuro advanced in Puppet Corps and did patrol missions, Gaara worked, but they all helped with the twins. Stayovers and days off had just been starting to frequent and now...

Suddenly Mai was an official Chuunin and had a emancipation file pending with the village and was already searching for apartments. Suddenly she was filling out Division paperwork. Suddenly Gaara was ordering new, modern weapons and flak jackets and ninja tools. Suddenly Temari was leaving for weeks and Kankuro was crammed in his workshop, up to his ears in experimental prototypes.

Suddenly Fumiko herself was getting her Ninja ID picture taken. Suddenly her glove was finished. Suddenly she had piles of war seals, suddenly, she was writing out her special skills in her own Division paperwork, suddenly she could use Earth Release and suddenly she was trying to wean the twins from breast milk.

Suddenly, she was searching for a place for them to stay.

Suddenly everything was coming too suddenly. The world had pressed play again, and then fast forward, and now they were coming up to the decided day of marching out, like a train hell-bent on the dynamited gap in the tracks.

It didn't really matter what you put in your paperwork when you signed up to be a part of a Division. You could join the Fourth Division and have mostly short-range skills. The reason the Kage were putting these forms out was so that one, they could track numbers and shinobi, and two, so that each division knew what they had by way of flexibility.

Fumiko spelled out Suiton Ninjutsu into Skills rather confidently, as well as Medical Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, Sealing, Offensive Seals, and Short-range Taijutsu. But she was hesitant to put Bukijutsu, given that her aim was crap with everything but her staff and every once in a while a lucky kunai or two, and that those were the only things she knew how to use. She also paused before writing Doton Ninjutsu, because while she could pull up about a foot of an Earth Style Wall and a pretty decent Doton: Mud Wave, it took a while and sometimes didn't work.

Eventually she put them anyway, at the very end, because while they were minimal skills they were skills she possessed.

Aside from minimal tactical smarts, there really was nothing else she could put, and she wouldn't put that, of course. Unless you were a Nara there was no reason to put 'Intelligence' because everyone who fought at all had to be able to come up with battlefield tactics.

In Specialization she put down Genjutsu, Battlefield Medicine, and Sealing. Usually, a specialization in sealing meant that you could spill blood kanji from your hands or feet, but while she couldn't do that, she wrote quickly and neatly enough to maintain nearly the same speed as one who could.

She wasn't going to rely on her ninjutsu. It was too dangerous and aside from Genjutsu, everything she used pulled chakra away and made her have to close her Gates, which made her tired and sluggish and basically, a liability. And while Taijutsu exhausted her, that was only physically and she could push through physically.

And so Fumiko was signing up for the Second Division, which basically consisted of Short-Range fighters, like the Hyuga or Land of Iron's Samurai. It was also the biggest so far, and was probably going to be the frontal assault, the first line of defense.

Instead of turning it in to the front desk like hordes and hordes of Sunagakure shinobi had already done, she brought it upstairs directly to Gaara with the twins in her cloth pouch and her quiver on her back. She was trying to get used to it's weight again, although she was sure it would be different anyway when she put on shinobi gear.

With it, as well, she brought lunch, a quickly prepared bento. So maybe Gaara wouldn't give her that sad look, maybe she could just file it in herself while he ate.

Gaara had the unfortunate habit of expecting the worst. Of course he trusted her, but in her outburst a few weeks ago, she'd voiced something Fumiko had never before even considered with a complete thought: Gaara didn't trust enough.

Oh, he was confident they would win, but 'they' was too general a term to put him at ease. He trusted Mai as a shinobi, and his siblings as well, every friend he'd ever made because they were all shinobi, trained shinobi, and this was their job.

And he trusted Fumiko completely, with so many things, with his and her mental health and with battlefield medicine- already he'd tried to convince her to at least join the Logistical Support and Medical Division, but all the medics were going there and there would be none on the field, which she had told him- the village and his heart. But not as a fighter. Or rather, not as a statistic of fighters, because she'd fought before and he knew she could.

And maybe he was right, that she trusted too much. But that was all she could do. If she went to fight thinking she was going to die, she wouldn't be able to leave the Gates.

Pushing the door open with her back, with the thermos tucked into the pouch between her babies' feet and a Tupperware in her hand with just one bento (because she really wasn't hungry after thinking so long and hard how she could contribute to a war threatening humanity itself.)

His desk was messy again. Fumiko smiled. It took less than half a day now for it to look like someone had set off a Flash Bang on the surface, what with all the papers coming in. "Ne, Gaara- I brought lunch."

His eyes flickered, and despite her inability to track ninja she was almost always able to track Gaara's eyes. Up, and then down, and then a brief, near unconscious flare of red-blue stain to check around her and down the hall.

"Thank you," he said. "You brought the twins?"

"Yeah! I figured they might as well get used to this place, eh?" She laughed, and then moved to pull up a stool and sit down, resting her foot on and hooking her prosthetic around the uppermost rung so she could use her knees as a support for the twins in their pouch. "So, whatcha got?"

"Division sign-ups, letters from the Kage, and opinions from citizens of Suna and the Advisors. It doesn't seem like I have too much else these days." Gaara frowned slightly when she laughed again, casting her a pseudo-confused sideways glance. "That wasn't a joke."

"I know, I know." Fumiko scooted the stool closer to the desk, kids happily tucked away and snug, to get at the papers on the desk and try to separate wreckage into plausible piles. "You just look so stressed, Gaara."

"And why is that funny?"

"'Cause you look a little like a puppy when you're stressed."

"What?"

"You get this super distressed look on your face, like 'please help me'." She giggled at his dead stare, something that would've scared off a terrorist. "What? Come on, that's funny. And you so do it."

"I most certainly do not."

"Do."

"No, I don't."

"Yes you do too! Right, Hajime?" she added when she noticed the infant's eyes fixed steadfastly on his father. "Your daddy makes funny faces, huh?"

"Fumiko!" he protested, and her smile widened because if he was being defensive about it than that meant there were ANBU in the room with them, which seemed to be true more often than not. "I do no such thing."

"Oo-kay," she teased. "Kazekage can't possibly make funny faces. I told you so, Hajime. Gaara's always super serious like a serious shinobi. Are you gonna be a super serious shinobi like your daddy?"

It wasn't until that moment that Gaara realized Hajime was blinking at him with his squinty brown eyes, and for some inexplicable reason he flushed slightly, then turned back to his work with the tiniest tug of a smile on the corner of his mouth. She passed him his bento to distract him from the pile of papers under his fingers, and while he ate continued to organize the stacks and stacks of mismatched, disorganized paperwork.

Gaara watched her quietly. He never really made any sounds when he was eating. Everything he did was quiet save for fighting, and that was only when he killed people, that sickening squelch that she hated so much. He never even called out any jutsu that wasn't 'sand coffin' because he was smart like that and by the time he was ready to use sand coffin it wasn't like his opponent would be able to get away.

And then he put out his hand and pulled the papers she'd brought with her out from under her elbow to read, also silently.

Her giddy mood lessened slightly as his lips pressed together, but he only looked about for the pile she'd made for him to go through for the one concerning unapproved Division requests and placed it at the top before going back to his bento.

"Hey, Gaara," she said sternly, and he looked up at her, surprised. "Look, we're not fighting for like- at least three or four more months. Can't we just not worry about it until then?"

"That's avoiding the issue." He said simply. "Pretending."

"Maybe, but you'd be a lot happier, that's for sure. Can I be really, really blunt?"

Now he blinked, half wary and half curious. "Yes?"

"If I die- not that I think I will, I think we're both gonna be just fine, but if- hypothetically- I was going to die, then, well, I'll be dead. All this worrying isn't going to do anything but make you sad while I'm still alive."

"Your idea of blunt and mine are two very different things," he said, voice dancing with something toeing amusement. Then he sighed a little, looked back at his bento. His body language made it obvious he was being self-conscious with other people listening to this, one of their budding heart-to-hearts, but Fumiko was glad for it. More people to hear here same thing.

"You know I'm right."

"But you're also different," he pointed out. "Most people can't just turn off their worries."

"Maybe." She hesitated, drew her arms back from the papers to the soft skin of her twins. "But can't you at least try?"

"..."

"C'mon, Gaara. Just try not to worry about it anymore than necessary. Like, triple check our battle plans for holes, definitely, but don't get upset whenever you remember I'm going with you."

"Sure, Fumiko," he said in a normal tone of voice, dropping his chopsticks into his finished bento box.

"Say 'I'll try'."

"'I'll try'," he repeated dully, and she laughed, which made his mouth twitch. "I will, Fumiko. I promise."

"Good." She gave a resolute nod, beamed, then turned back to her work to glance over a letter from the Raikage. Fumiko wondered for a second if the Raikage sent as many letters to the other Kage as he did to Gaara, or if he'd just realized that, oh, young Kazekage actually knows what he's talking about most of the time. "Whoa! Why am I always the one to see these first?"

"See what first?"

"Well, first, you're Commander of the Fourth division."

"I expected as much," he said. "When it comes to Long-Range attacks, I'm rather well-known."

Rather than laughing, she only gave a mischievous little grin before continuing. "You also happen to be Regimental Commander of the entire Great Battle Regiment."

"What? Let me see that!"

"See, Hajime? Daddy makes funny faces when he's surprised, too."

"Hey!"

...

~ She followed his son around like some kind of animal, a pet, loud and irritating and mostly useless, always snitching chocolate from the chefs in the kitchens and leaving crayon drawings all over the living quarters floor. ~

...

"Wind Release: Great Task of the Dragon!"

"Two, Eishi, two!"

"I'm trying! They'll be down in a second!"

Mai tensed, spreading out her legs to crouch close towards the ground. "Don't get splashed this time!"

"Don't spit oil in my direction and I won't catch fire. Simple solution." He drew in a sharp breath, and Mai could feel the change in air pressure as the few clouds in the sky gathered together for one final stand. "Coming down, hurry up!"

She made a tiger seal and grimaced, feeling slicked black oil churning in her stomach up her throat until it spilled over her tongue.

Oil, surprisingly enough and despite it's sharp tang of a scent, was rather sweet. But the texture drove her up the wall, all bubbly and thick like heavy water, and when you ween't used to upchucking it it made you feel like you were drowning in your own blood, warm and sticky.

Luckily she was used to upchucking it, and it spilled out into the air like the buckshot of a water gun before it arced and hit the ground a decent ten or fifteen feet away, splattering into a puddled pool roughly the perimeter of a train boxcar, right below the twin tornadoes that touched down. They were messy and uncontrolled, even from this distance tearing at their clothes.

They washed black like pigment dropped in water and she twisted her fingers into seals and yelled "Eishi, hit the deck! Katon: Flame Bullet!"

Fire trailed out of her mouth and she thought don't explode, don't explode, don't explode...

Liquid flame ignited and fire raced up the slicked winds, and there was a pulse of heat as the flame grew that dried out her eyes and would have dried out her mouth had it not still been full of oil. Eishi yelped and tumbled onto his butt at the wave of almost tangible hot air, despite the protection on his Giant Folding Fan. Mai just skidded backwards, crossing her arms over her face and peeking through her wrists.

"Shit shit shit!" Was basically the extent of Eishi's verbal though process, but Mai grinned as the flames grew, smirk widening as the cyclones broke apart in different directions and continued to burn, the flames started with oil and fueled by chakra-powered wind.

"It's working! Yes!"

It wasn't long before they puttered out, devoid of further food, flames ringing wider and wider circles into the air until finally they dissipated. When she lowered her arms, they were red. She was going to have to work on distance, she mused, studying her skin, before glancing over at Eishi, who stabbed his fan into the ground and heaved to his feet.

"At least it didn't explode this time," he said, shooting her a glance.

"Are you kidding?" Mai spat oil into the sand, then wiped her mouth, streaking the back of her hand with black. "It worked! If we'd been in a melee and there were people everywhere, those cyclones would've torn them to pieces and burned the shreds to ashes!"

"Yeah." His fan snapped closed and with one arm he heaved it over his back to stick there to it's holster. "It's about time. I think if we blew up one more time border control was going to sic black ops on us."

"And they said learning Great Fire Whirlwind was impossible," she gloated. "Cooperation ninjutsu, geniuses! Man, I wish Shiragiku coulda seen that!" Mai let herself fall back into a sitting position, thumping hard into the soft sand, and continued to wipe at her mouth. "Where is he, anyway? I thought he said he would meet us here."

"He got caught up in some family training. I ran into him this morning picking up some herbs for my mom."

"How's his thing going? He won't show me."

"Pretty good. He looks pretty badass with those plants, looks almost like a Senju."

"Shira, badass?" She snickered, falling all the way down onto her back and abandoning her vain attempt to get everything off her tongue. "Now that, I have to see. Is he still training?"

Eishi padded over to sit far more gently beside her, and she slanted a look his way, tucking her hands beneath her head. "Maybe. We might still be able to catch him."

"Got a chakra pill?"

"Feeling low?"

"Eh. You know it. That thing's hard."

"Last resort only," he reminded her, but reached into a pocket and tossed a soldier pill up into the air, which she caught and popped into her mouth. She didn't let her lips pucker at the dry, sour nastiness that was chakra pills, but swallowed. "If we set that off with allies nearby, we're sacrificing everyone on the field, especially if I bring down more than one."

"Yeah, yeah. Trust my judgement. If I call it, you know I'm screwed."

"Yeah." He grinned down at her. "Like you'd be caught dead using a cooperation ninjutsu if you didn't have to."

...

~ Rasa scrunched his nose up in distaste, lifting the corner of the paper with two fingers, then dropped it back on the kitchen table. The servants had probably already seen it; the damage was done. It was a stupid thing done only in black, yellow, and pink, a childish rendition of a coiled snake and cactus. ~

...

Gaara was still showering. He'd woken up a little later than usual for whatever reason, so when she finally opened her eyes, Fumiko could hear the pitter-patter of the shower water running.

She yawned and stood, rubbing at her eyes. The twins weren't crying, that was fantastic.

She rolled off the bed with about as much grace as a toddler, then felt around for her prosthetic and sock until she finally found them underneath the bed. Maybe Gaara had accidentally nudged them while he was getting ready, although she didn't know why he would have been so close to her bedside.

Standing, she stretched her arms above her head, wandering over to the crib as she stretched to peek inside, smiling when she saw them both curled against each other in warmth-flushed sleep, little mouths drooped open, touching each other.

"Mmm." She bent a little, leaning to put her head down on her arms, crossed against the top of the crib, to watch them. She needed to make a mobile, or something. Doubtless they would learn words and understand things before she and Gaara got back... doubtless they would wonder where their mother and father went. How long would they be fighting for?

A few minutes later, when Hiroki turned in his sleep and she zoned back into reality enough to realize that the shower was still going, she wandered again toward her nightstand, with it's mirror. All her toiletries were in the bathroom still, but her necklace was here, and she lifted it up by the string to watch the pouch dangle.

Gently, Fumiko took it in her hands and loosed the top, reaching in with two fingers to pull out her prism. This she held up to the light filtering in through the window, and smiled again, brightly at the rainbow that shattered on the glass, glinting in sparkles across her skin and clothes and the mirror and the nightstand, yellow and red and blue and purple...

The water shut off in the bathroom and she tucked the glass prism back into the little cloth bag, then tugged on the sting to pull the drawstring tight. She draped it over her bed-head hair and neck just as the door opened and Gaara came out, towel wrapped around his waist and another in his hands as he dried is hair.

She watched him glance up from the mirror, then as he jumped, hair disheveled and face red with steam-heat, then with embarrassment.

"Fumiko!" he blurted, arms jerking down and bringing the towel down with them. Then he coughed to clear his throat. "Uh, you're awake."

"Yup! Just woke up." She grinned at his flustered expression, steam billowing out after him through the open door, and turned to look at him for real. "You're late, Ka-ze-ka-ge. Better get dressed."

"Oh! Um... right."

...

~ Gaara's mental state was unstable. It always had been, and it always would be. There was no fixing it- the Ichibi Shukaku had ruined his mind in his young age. He couldn't handle it. So he had tried to remedy the problem- put the child out of his misery and protect the village. ~

...

"Wait! Fumiko-sama!"

"Hm?" Fumiko turned, blinking, int he direction of the aviary birdkeeper. Her arms were full of bags, different kinds of mail separated as Miscellaneous and Personal. His arms were just as full, and he looked a little flustered, with bird feathers in his hair and squawking hawks in the background. "Yeah?"

"Please, bring this to Kazekage-sama." He held out one single scroll. "It's from Lady Temari, down at Konoha."

"Oh! Sure!" She accepted it with a warm smile, and he smiled back, small and respectful. Fumiko lifted it in one hand. "I'll take it up to him right now. I was just on my way to the office, anyway. He's probably getting sick and tired of the twins being in there whenever I gotta do things."

...

~ Except that for whatever reason, Shukaku protected him at every turn, awake or asleep, aware or not. There was no catching him off guard, there was no getting past his defenses. And there was no coming back alive. ~

...

"Yeah, that's it. Whoops, lets keep your head up, huh?"

Fumiko readjusted Hiroki in the little bath she'd gotten on the onslaught of gifts following her and Gaara's announcement. It was small and white, big enough for a normal sized baby, slick but with a little stripe of traction so they wouldn't slip- still, they did, slowly but surely. Hajime had already been washed, and was bundled in lankets in his carrier.

She was washing them in the nursery, which had a bathroom, just like every room on the floor. Hajime was already wearing his little cap, a loose-knit blue. Hiroki's waited with his clothes, small things they usually didn't wear but they were getting wet and so they needed the heat.

Fumiko gently scrubbed his face with a washcloth, dipping it into the sudless, plain water and rubbing near his eyes, his little nose and mouth, his forehead and cheeks. He cooed softly, squirming in the lukewarm water. She dipped the washcloth in the water again and wiped around and in his ears, both of them, before going back and this time adding soap.

"How do you get so dirty?" she chided playfully, scrubbing his chest with the soapy cloth, giggling. "You never go outside! You barely even ever spit up. Huh?" She poked his chest, laughing lightly, before washing his arms and little hands. His fingers squished it automatically.

"Hey, give it back." Fumiko tugged at it. "I still need to wash the rest of you!"

There was a sound behind her that made her jump, head twisting about her neck almost like an owl's, eyes wide. There shouldn't have been anyone in the nursery, let alone the nursery bathroom, why was there a noise like...

There was no one there. The door was wide open. She'd thought she left it half-open, but sometimes she forgot things like that. She could see all the way through the room, and there was no one.

"The door must have creaked open," she said aloud with a shaky laugh to her infants. "Silly me, huh?"

...

~ So he kept the jinchuuriki separated from others everywhere in school, where the children seemed to segregate from him anyway. He had schooled him separately to teach him to harness his ninjutsu- Gaara's sand was hardly any different from his own Gold Dust- to put him at a level above everyone else and left him to his own devices. Less people, less stimuli, less targets. ~

...

"I've been thinking of finding a proxy," Gaara said when she came through the door, without so much as a how-do-you-do. But it made sense- he looked up to his ears in work, and really it was amazing that he'd even noticed she was there, given the fleeting dash of his eyes.

"A what?" She let the door close behind her. Mai and Kankuro were watching the twins in the kitchen while she brought Gaara his dinner. "A proxy? For what?"

"A proxy commander to the Great Battle Regiment."

"Oh!" Fumiko scooted closer to see what he was looking at, then frowned when she realized that what he was working on had absolutely nothing to do with his train of thought- another request from a shinobi by the name of Daichi for the third division. "... Are you zoning out again? Do you need to go for a walk?"

"No, no." He waved a hand distractedly. "I'm multitasking."

"Well, in that case..." She set the tray of yakisoba down and pulled up her stool, reaching for a few loose sheets he didn't even seem to be aware of. "Who were you thinking of making your proxy?"

"Nara Shikamaru."

Fumiko paused. And then she grinned. "He's going to hate you for recommending him to such a troublesome job."

Gaara laughed as well, a fleeting chuckle. "Perhaps. But if I'm incapacitated, it would be the entire Regiment at large, not just the Fourth Division. I need a proxy, and I believe Shikamaru would do well as one."

"I bet so." Fumiko nodded, sucking at her lip and folding piles into legible stacks. "Shikamaru's smarter than anyone. In Konoha, I heard this saying- you should fear three things: An angry Aburame, a focused Inuzuka, and a motivated Nara."

"That seems accurate." Gaara smiled. "Hopefully, we have all three."

"I bet we do." She nudged the tray over to Gaara, who slid it over the rest of the way and uncapped the thermos to take a drink. He never knew what it was, which Temari liked to say meant he trusted her completely, because no shinobi ever drank or ate blind even with family. But it was just milk. "I mean, maybe Shino won't be mad- I dunno if he even can be- but Kiba's pretty intense and Shikamaru can be, too."

"The Konoha-nin will be a huge help."

She laughed excitedly. "They're, like, an entire first line of defense! Uzumaki Naruto alone!"

The smile slipped off Gaara's face, which made her pause. "About Naruto."

...

~ Except for that girl, the troublesome civilian girl who'd seemingly forcefully attached herself to his son's hip. She was confusing him, Rasa knew, messing with his psyche, tearing his brain between being completely loathed by everyone and having someone think it was all just a farce. ~

...

"Ugh. It's too early for this."

"Hey, you came all on your own!"

"'Kankuro, I'm going house hunting, come with me' isn't really on my own."

"You didn't have to!"

"You set off my traps again! I was awake anyway!"

"You need to change those, by the way. I was totally expecting all of them. I could've killed you if I was trying to be quiet."

"Oh, shut up."

"So, where are we going?"

"The newspaper stall."

"The newspaper stall?" Mai frowned, tucking her thumbs into her belts. They were walking through a mostly-parting sparse crowd. It really was early, the sun had risen just a half hour before. "Uh, I dunno if you've noticed, but that guy hates my guts."

"Well, how else do you expect to find a place? Ask for a Chuunin apartment? I wouldn't recommend that."

"Like you've ever lived anywhere other than the Kazekage Tower, spoiled bastard." The only reason she'd wanted him to come with her was because for one, people tended to like him better at a glance, and especially after the first few words exchanged. And he was better at the whole 'patience' thing, pawing around for what he wanted.

"Maybe not, but I do have a life, you know. I've been in friends' apartments."

"Really?" She feigned a look of surprised curiosity. "I would think all your friends' houses were dollhouses."

"Oh, shut up," he said again. "Brat. I should've just locked you out and tried to go back to sleep."

"Oi, calm down." Mai let her smirk widen. "You're looking a little purple in the face."

She was fairly certain that little ticcing throb near his right eye was an actual throbbing vein, but before she could comment on it, they reached the newspaper stand. And she hadn't been lying when she said the guy who ran it hated her. Honestly, window-shopping was a thing, as was talking back to your elders. She really didn't see why the civilian man was so offended.

"You," was the first thing he said, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah, me. Miss me?"

Kankuro put a hand on her face to make her shut up, and her eyes narrowed. "Hi, sir. We're actually buying something toaaouch! Mai! Let go!"

She spat his finger out, grimacing. "Ugh. You taste like dirt and oil and metal. Do you ever leave that stupid workshop?"

"Anyway," he said pointedly, drawing his hand in towards his chest. "I was wondering if you had any Residency magazines or papers. Preferably third quarter based, more shinobi geared."

Kankuro paid for the magazine and then turned right back around to walk back in the direction of the Tower, and Mai grinned once at the newspaper vendor before running to catch up. When she did, she cocked her chin up at him. "Hey, now where are we going, Baka-Kankuro?"

"Home."

"Why?"

"Because now we pore through this thing and pick out a bunch of places to look. Don't you know anything about apartment searching?"

She scowled. "How would I know anything about it? I've lived in the same place my entire life, and I hardly know anyone moving! Except for Fumiko, but it wasn't exactly like she had any conflicts about where to go."

"True," he mused. "You have even less than a life than I do. Unless you're living some double life."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" she snapped, eyes flickering to the sand and then just as quickly back up. Eye contact. If you want to lie make eye contact without flinching. Body language, Mai. "I don't have a secret double life. I wouldn't have the time, anyway."

"Yeah, because you're so busy with doing nothing."

"Not nothing!" Mai huffed. "You can knock my training all you want, but when we go to war you'll see just how different I am! Believe me, to the death is a way different fight than just sparring."

"Really?" Kankuro sent her a faux curious glance. The sand whipped the little ears on his hood about with the wind. Not that her own situation was any better, hair flying everywhere in whatever direction the wind fancied to tug it. "I always thought you were trying to kill me anyway."

"Believe me," she said confidently. "If I wanted to kill you, you would know."

...

~ She was filling his head with non-shinobi nonsense, making him softer and more timid. Out of all of his children, Rasa guessed that the only capable future Kazekage of the three would be Temari, though he'd hoped that Gaara would be able to take his place as a powerful jinchuuriki. ~

...

Days off were different than they had been a year ago. It was different than it had been a month ago.

Gaara hadn't trained- really, really trained- since probably when he became the Kazekage of Suna. He saw no need to, everyone was afraid of him and even if his skills got a little rusty they were more than the most experienced jonin in Wind Country could claim to have in top condition. He was just too busy to make the time, and it seemed like he tried his hardest to spend time with her whenever he got time off.

But it was different now. A few days of training, a new jutsu or a more honed control of the sand, it could be the difference between life and death. Mai was skeptical, she knew, but even so, her sister also liked to say that underestimating your enemy is a signature on Death's search and seizure warrant.

If the storyteller was really who he said he was, than they were up against Madara, a man on par with Senju Hashirama, a man who could fight entire wars on his own, a man who by all rights should have been dead, and the storyteller's voice had been so young- if it was him, then he was immortal.

Or maybe, her common sense tried to reason, maybe he had a jutsu similar to Orochimaru's that allowed him to steal the bodies of others. That would explain why he sounded so young, and why he'd claimed to be virtually powerless... that idea was more and less disturbing than that of him being immortal.

Either way, it was in everyone's best interest to train and prepare. It was harder for them- Gaara was the Kazekage for sugar's sake, he had literally zero time to do anything, especially now- and Fumiko herself was almost always busy taking care of the twins.

But even she got her time in, with someone nearby holding Hajime and Hiroki. Her Earth Jutsu hadn't much improved but her control of water was perfect to a C-rank level- despite the fact that she could use, like, four before she was done completely, even simple jutsus like Water Bullet- and her Taijutsu was, if not formidable, then acceptable in battle.

It really had been a while since Gaara last did anything with his own sand save to attack every now and again, what with that one time she'd almost been kidnapped and the one time he had been kidnapped and the Summit, along with a few bitter challengers here and there. A while since she'd watched him meditate, sand swirling around him in lazy spirals and cyclones. A while since she'd seen his smooth, clipped movement, arms flying in jerky stops, crushing rocks and tripling in moments.

Now she watched from where she sat against the outer wall, in the sand, as Gaara practiced his jutsu a good two hundred yards or so away, because she had the twins and there were whirlpools of sand around him and it was just dangerous when he wasn't focusing on where his jutsu were.

Fumiko knew he wouldn't be tired later. Gaara really was a genius in his own right, tactical and practical and powerful, with Shukaku's chakra reserve to fill with his own, and sand that, unless he fused it with minerals to make his most powerful defenses, took barely any chakra at all to use. At this point everything he did was jonin level save for Genjutsu, and that was only casting it- he could break out of Genjutsu expertly.

Gaara of the Desert's ninjutsu was feared across the nations. Gaara of the Sand Waterfall, Godaime Kazekage, the Golden Child of the Three Sand Siblings- he had a thousand titles in bingo books created by those who watched him in the Chuunin Exams, a hundred more printed by those handful that witnessed him in action on his missions.

But Madara...

"Gaara!" she called, cupping one hand against the sand blowing near her mouth. "You're loose to your left!"

Immediately the problem corrected itself, sand rushing together where they'd been forgotten about. Without the aid of his Perfect Ultimate Defense- as he'd taken to calling what it'd been pre-Shukaku's removal, it took a considerable amount of concentration now to maintain a complete any full-body technique that wasn't Sand Armor.

That, strangely enough, was still automatic and still perfect.

His arms slashed and up he went, crouching slightly into a half-fissured Sand Pillar that dissipated instantly as he flipped forward off it, dropping like a stone and twisting to lash out with controlled, unnamed sand. There weren't jutsu names for most of what he did, considering that most of it was just his sand chasing people down and either crushing them or spearing them or- as of late- sealing them.

It was strange to have Gaara ask her for help with seals. He was trying to incorporate sealing tags into his sand with great pyramids and mausoleums. Why, she didn't quite know- maybe his thinking was on the same line as hers: if Madara was immortal, if he couldn't be injured...

Hiroki started to murmur and then cry in his pouch. Fumiko was huddled to block them from most of the wind and all of the whipping sand, so she knew that wasn't the problem. He probably just needed to be changed.

"Hey! Hiroki's fussing, I'm gonna head back home!"

After a moment's delay, centripetal force pushing the sand onwards even after Gaara released it, it all fell like his Sand Hail, crashing to the ground with much poofing and floating and general ado. She couldn't really see his face but knew he was looking over at her, knew what he was thinking when a portion of the sand he'd been using- the infused Defense sand- drained backwards into his gourd.

The trail followed him as he walked over, straightening his vest slightly. Gaara's gourd was bigger than ever, one of his own creation, with enough sand to sever the Kage Tower in two. Fumiko knew it had to be heavy, but Gaara had been gradually increasing the amount of sand he carried since they were really and truly kids.

"I'll go with you," he called as he got closer. He didn't raise his voice, but it carried on the wind over the distance. "How long has it been?"

"I dunno." Unlike him, her voice didn't project all that great, so she had to raise it above the his and ebb of the wind. "Maybe an hour or two? I lost track."

The sand underneath her helped her to her feet, an action she knew by now was just as automatic for him as his Sand Armor. As was catching her falls, which had been admittedly constant throughout her childhood...

With a shinobi's speed, shunshin or not, he was in front of her- them- and he reached a hesitant finger to pull away the fabric of the pouch she wore, standing in the path of the worst of the Suna sand so it battered about him, like a shield. Hiroki just cried louder at the attention, and Gaara smiled once, small, before nodding and crossing his arms, eyes flicking to the entrance.

"Let's go," he said, and kept at her slow gate when she smiled and started to walk. His dark maroon coat was hot to the touch as it brushed against the skin of her arm, but as always, Gaara didn't seem much affected by the heat.

On the walk back, Gaara kept up his cool demeanor. Every part of his body language sent off a vibe that pushed away curious villagers, ninja and civilian alike, who wanted to talk to the Kazekage or see the twins or look at Fumiko's prosthetic, which was still somehow an object of curiosity and to some, disdain, despite the time passed.

"You're looking pretty good out there," she said conversationally as they passed by a clothing store. "It's almost better than when you had Shukaku- I think maybe you were relying on Shukaku's power a lot during the Chuunin Exams."

"Perhaps," he hummed. "I'm just glad I still have the ability to control the sand."

"What, Gaara without the desert? Sabaku no Gaara," she said with a grin. "There's no way you'll ever lose your control."

"Mm. I hope so." Gaara seemed to hesitate, expression flickering over a few pieces of emotions before settling again. "How is your own training going? I haven't had much chance recently to talk to Mai."

"Oh, it's great!" she said, beaming, before it hit her that he'd just asked how her training was going, and she paused, blinking. Gaara cast her a confused look as he overstepped, looking back.

"Is something wrong?"

She smiled, then took another three quick steps to catch up, and they fell abck into step. "Nope!" she said brightly. "Anyway, I can use all sorts of Water Jutsu now. I wish Earth would come faster, though... I know it takes months and months, but we don't really have months and months."

"Have you worked at all with your Genjutsu? That's your greatest asset."

"Well, duh." She laughed and bumped his shoulder, keeping her arms wrapped around the bundle of cloth to steady the twins as she did so. "Me without Genjutsu is just as bad as you without your sand!"

They passed by a group of giggling girls Mai's age, all of whom noticed them seemingly at the last second as they went by. All of whom, similarly at the last second, proceeded to giggle even louder. Gaara frowned slightly but didn't move to look back at them, unspoken discomfort flitting across his face.

"That reminds me," he said out of the blue. "Has... has that Satomi confronted you at all?"

"Not really," Fumiko replied, and frowned thoughtfully. "Sometimes it's like I see her, but it's never real. Or maybe she just keeps disappearing, I dunno. But when she does talk to me she doesn't stay long."

"Her jutsu... makes me a little nervous," he admitted. "Are you sure she's not dangerous?"

"No. She's definitely dangerous. I don't know what it means that she came back. I mean, she worked for Akatsuki, but... but she hasn't really tried to hurt anyone yet." She felt queasy just at the idea of it. "But she's still Akatsuki. Or at least she was still Akatsuki. Orochimaru was part of Akatsuki, too. I don't trust her."

Gaara's frown deepened. "Should I have Kankuro or Mai stay with you?"

"No." She sighed, and looked down into the pouch, lifting a hand to brush a fingertip against the fuzz of red hair. "I don't think she'll hurt me. If- if she wanted to she would've already. Maybe she doesn't want to, I don't really know. But she can appear whenever and wherever she wants; if she wanted it wouldn't matter if someone was with me."

"That doesn't help. And there's Hajime and Hiroki to think of. She showed up in the nursery first, right?"

"Yeah. She said she was just looking for our room, but..."

"Don't trust her," he warned. "No matter what she says. Be wary."

...

~ But in her meddling Gaara seemed to have lost any future true judgement. ~

...

"Hu! Hu!" Fumiko's breaths were sharply exhaled, controlled. "Hu!"

"Cool." Mai watched her work with the padded post with a mischievous look on her face. "You know, I think with your balance and that nifty sock, you could kick out someone's knee with that lead foot of yours."

"You remember that, huh?"

"Lead Foot? Yeah. Namari Fiito, Namari Fiito. Ha. That thing's not even made of lead." Mai scoffed. "Idiots."

"Not the worst thing I could've been called."

"Don't you mean 'not the worst thing I have been called'?"

Fumiko shrugged, falling back and dropping her arms. If Mai was holding conversation it meant she was probably either done or moving on to something new. Probably back to Doton. Fumiko made a face. "That too. What's next?"

"You're not really a melee fighter," Mai started off without a transition at all. "But your getting better with softening the ground. Er, turning it to mud, but that'll change soon. Hopefully." She waved a hand. "Anyway, back to melee fighting. If you find yourself surrounded, you'll be in trouble. So what you need is a way to get away."

"With Doton, right?"

"Right." She smirked, put a hand on one of her sword hilts. "A couple of nasty bastards in Iwa pulled that shit on me a year back. It's called Doton: Hiding Like a Mole technique. I'm guessing you can figure that out."

"Hiding in the ground like a mole?- like a tunnel?"

"Yeah, sort of. I looked it up, when you're less experienced you can just collapse a tunnel, make an air pocket. When you get to be really good at it, like those Iwa nin, you can travel quick by shifting the earth directly around your skin. Like, centimeters. Makes it harder to detect. But you don't need to worry about that." Her smirk widened. "If you can figure out how to drop down and cover up the hole and run... I'd love to see that."

...

~ Not to mention that she was fairly annoying in her own right, noisy and needy and crippled. Rasa himself had to pay for maintenance and every prosthetic she grew out of, thanks to his own son's near blackmail. ~

...

"Why am I here, again?"

"You said you wanted to get out of the house. I was already on my way out..."

"Whatever." Temari glanced at the address number above an apartment door, then back down at the little piece of paper Fumiko had given her. Fumiko herself held a cloth bag, a common covering for her paintings whenever they got delivered around Suna, to protect the image and the paint itself from the wind and sand. "A genin apartment? Really?"

"Umm..." Fumiko laughed. "Can you knock? If I try I think I might fall over."

Temari rolled her eyes, but rapped lightly against the wood with her knuckles before stepping back impatiently.

Only a few seconds passed before the door opened slowly, warily. But then the eyes that greeted her widened in surprise and the door flung the rest of the way open. Masae's jaw dropped with surprise.

"Fumiko-sama?"

"Hi, Masae," she said brightly. "I- uh, this is, like, really super months and months late... but I finished your painting."

"My... my painting?"

"Yeah! It just finished drying last night. Here- the bag's to keep it safe outside, but it should be fine in the house. How's the Genin thing going? Get a lot of missions?"

"Um. Um, yeah!" Masae brightened, and she smiled, reaching to take it. Her eyes flicked nervously to Temari, but she didn't say anything to her. "I honestly thought you'd forgotten all about it after Kazekage-sama's run-in with Akatsuki. You didn't seem well."

"That's because I wasn't," Fumiko admitted sheepishly, with a little laugh tacked on the end. "Not... not one of my best moments. But anyway, you don't have to pay for it or anything. My Gallery isn't even open right now, so don't worry about it," she added when Masae's face instantly changed to protest. "Really, I'm just getting ready for this whole 'Fourth World War' thing."

The Genin's face sobered. "I tried to test into Chuunin," she said. "But I didn't make the cut. Good luck, Fumiko-sama. For your sake and Kazekage-sama's, I hope you make it out alright."

Fumiko grinned. "Definitely."

"This might be improper, but..." Masae cast another look at Temari, who scowled lightly. "Give 'em hell, my Lady."

...

~ He had tried to fix this problem as well. But somewhere along the line, his son had grown attached to the civilian child. According to reports from the Jonin he'd posted on his youngest, he was fiercely protective of her in the way that animals were fiercely protective of their pack members. The only time he didn't rip the offender to shreds was when she was present to tell him not to. ~

...

"In through the window, A moonbeam comes, Little gold moonbeam, With misty wings; All silently creeping, It asks; "Is he sleeping, Sleeping and dreaming, While mother sings?"

"Where did you learn that?"

Fumiko smiled, still lightly bobbing Hiroki, the only twin awake. Hajime had fallen asleep for his nap with little fuss at all, but Hiroki never seemed to want to sleep when they wanted him to sleep. "My mother used to sing it to me."

"That's really nice."

"Thank you, Matsuri." She finally looked up from her baby's face toward the door, which had been open anyway to let light into the room after she'd turned the switch. She stepped out of her own silhouette, leaning her head into the frame. Her hair browned, face clearing. "What brings you up here?"

"My sensei asked me to bring a report up to Gaara-sama. I heard you singing from the stairs-"

"Shh." Hiroki's snuffles had silenced, and now he was sleeping just as suddenly as he'd started fussing. Carefully she put him down onto the thin, soft mattress next to his brother, then moved to step out into the hallway with Matsuri, who stepped out of the way. Now that they were face to face in the light of the hallway, she could see the papers in Matsuri's hand.

Fumiko closed the door behind her, then smiled again. "Sorry. It's just that if he'd woken up-"

"Don't worry about it." Matsuri waved a hand with a slight grin. "I've done D-ranks at the orphanage and a couple of day-cares. I know how that goes. How are they, anyway? It's all anyone can talk about these days."

"They're great!" She laughed, still quietly as they were right next to the doors and apparently her babies had both of their parents' sense of hearing. "Nah, people just never see them, between their sensitivity to being outside and Gaara... being Gaara."

"And Gaara-sama?"

"He's good, too. Just really, really busy. And stressed. But it's okay, I make him eat." She tilted her head slightly in curiosity. "How've you and Sari been doing? Mai tells me you passed your Advancement Tests. So you'll be joining us then?"

Matsuri frowned. "'Us'?"

"Doesn't anyone know?" Fumiko smiled, and she could literally feel the tired edge to her eyes when she did. "I'm going, too. Gaara advanced me to Genin Shinobi, and because I'm officially the Kazekage's Second in Command, I can fight."

"And he's... just letting you?"

"Well... yeah." She chewed at her lower lip, shifting her weight from her flesh and blood foot to her metal one. "I mean... he doesn't want me to get hurt, but he doesn't want me to hate him, or have anything get weird. I asked him to let me go, too."

"Will you at least be in the Fourth Division with Lord Gaara?" Matsuri protested. "My Lady, I don't mean any offense- really- but I don't think-"

"No, Matsuri." Fumiko said quietly and Matsuri drew back, pulling back the hand she'd raised to put on Fumiko's shoulder and blushing slightly like she'd been chastised. Fumiko's smile gentled. "No, I won't be with Gaara. I'm going in the first division. No, Mai won't be with me, either. This is- this is something I have to do on my own."

"But... Fumiko-sama... what about your children?"

"I... I'll find somewhere for them to stay. Look, Matsuri... I know you don't mean anything by it, so don't worry. But I'll be fighting with you guys. I don't want to fight about it anymore." She put both her hands on the younger girl's shoulders. "Thanks for trying, though, really. I know you didn't used to like me-"

"No, no, Fumiko-sama-"

"Don't even try." Her smile turned grin turned something sly. "You and Sari talk really loud under your breaths. I can't come with you because- well, I have to stay with the twins, but maybe you should get those papers up to Gaara."

"Um- right." Matsuri smiled, then bowed quickly. "Thank you, Fumiko-sama." She took a few jogging steps toward the stairs, then paused and turned back. "Oi, and Fumiko-sama?"

"Yeah?" She stopped with her hand a hair away from the doorknob of her bedroom. Maybe she could just take a quick nap until Kankuro came to get her for dinner...

"I'm glad you'll be with us." Matsuri nodded resolutely, then clutched the papers to her chest and ran the rest of the way to the stairs, disappearing in a matter of heartbeats.

Fumiko blinked, and then smiled, turning the knob to her bedroom door.

Everyone around her, it seemed, was growing up fast.

...

~ At the moment it wasn't clear if she would cause him to be more unstable or not, but the real problem lied solely in Gaara's affection- because so far as he knew, the nine year old had none for anyone else. ~

...

While the dashi broth, soy sauce, sugar, mirin, and sake mixture she'd thrown and poured together heated to a boil in a pan on the stove, Fumiko kept a careful eye on it and chopped an onion into thin slices, sniffling and occasionally wiping at her eyes with her forearm. Another pot steamed with cooking rice, and there was a bowl at her elbow filled with beef slices, ready to be put on.

It was early still, neither of her usual three breakfast companions had arrived yet. Strange, considering that Mai rose with the sun and was usually already here by now, but maybe she had just been caught up training. That happened pretty often.

Passing by Kankuro's room on the way to the kitchen, she knew that Kankuro had been dead asleep from the noise, so she probably had at least another hour to wait for him. Temari's room had been silent and the door locked as always, it was impossible to tell if she'd even been in there.

The twins were asleep still in the bedroom- and if they woke up they would cry, but considering that it'd been quickly discovered that Hajime and Hiroki upset could be heard from literally anywhere on the floor- and the upper and lower floors by people with good ears- she would be able to get to the bedroom in a moment.

She was making Gyudon, a rice dish topped with simmered meat and topped with pickled red ginger. A strange choice for breakfast, maybe, but she was feeling like making something strange. Of course she'd already put on coffee for whenever Temari showed up, although no one else she knew seemed to have any taste for it.

Including herself. Personally Fumiko thought coffee was way too bitter and strong and gross even after adding tons and tons of sugar and cream, so she left the stuff well enough alone. Mai had spat it out the first time she'd ever tried it, and Kankuro liked to say it tasted worse than whiskey. But Temari liked it, so Fumiko made a batch every morning whenever she was the first one up.

Which was pretty normal. Or at least Fumiko was usually the first one to the kitchen- she didn't really know Temari's morning routines or if she woke up way earlier; maybe she took hour long baths and applied makeup or polished her fan.

Gaara was already working in the office, he'd left almost before she got out of bed. He'd had that face on that revealed how late he'd actually stayed up working on the little desk against the wall, he'd probably gotten stuck on or really into something and literally forgotten to go to sleep. As far as she could tell he hadn't even showered.

"Morning."

"Morning, Temari," she greeted, transferring the onion slices from the cutting board to the bubbling pan, careful not to let the popping splashes catch her arms. She grabbed up the wooden spoon and nudged the liquid around, turning her head to smile at the groggy elder Sand Sibling. "Sleep good?"

She was rewarded with a grunt. "Well enough."

"Hajime didn't wake you up, did he?"

"What do you think?"

Fumiko laughed sheepishly with an apologetic grin before turning back to the food. "Sorry. Gaara walked him upstairs, but Hiroki was already awake, and..."

"Yeah, yeah." Fumiko could imagine the dismissive hand-wave as she followed Temari's shuffling steps in the direction of the coffee maker. The kunoichi was always so composed, so controlled, so precise... except for in the morning. "I know that song."

The onions were starting to turn clear as they softened, so she tossed the spoon to her other hand to tip the meat in with the rest of the Gyudon, scraping it out with the lip of the wooden spoon and stirring it about. "Feeling up for Gyudon?"

"For breakfast?" She sighed. "Sure, why not?"

"D'you want benishoga?"

"Eh, why not." There was a click, probably as the carafe came off the machine. It was followed by a telltale trickle and the click of a ceramic mug against the stone countertops. "... Hey, Fumiko, are you free sometime this month? Is there anyone that can watch the kids?"

"Uh, probably." She flicked off the flame for the rice. "Why?"

"Mai and I were talking about getting you some real gear."

"Gear?"

"Shinobi attire," she clarified, and there was a pause as she took a sip of coffee and shuffled again to the table. "A flak vest, maybe. Some armored fishnet. Longer pants, some tool weaponry holsters."

"Oh. Ehe, I kinda forgot all about that." Fumiko paused, staring at the Gyudon that was starting to smell like cooking meat, pausing her spoon's swirl. "I'll probably need it, huh?"

"If you want to survive? Yeah." There was a layer of sarcasm in the statement, like a verbal sigh. "You have barely any experience. You're probably going to get stabbed in the back at least once or twice, we need to get you something so you don't get skewered or jutsu'ed. And I know you're bringing things with you."

"Well, yeah..." She blinked. "That makes sense. Yeah, sure. You and Mai both?"

"She's going anyway. I don't know if you've noticed, but she doesn't really wear anything armored." Temari was behind her, but she could just feel the way she rolled her eyes. "Even she's not reckless enough to go out in a full-out war without at least some fishnet."

"Talking shit, miss all-my-clothes-are-silk?" There was a laugh from the open doorway, and the spot pulsated gold, the wild feeling of her sister in a good mood. "You rely way too much on that wind of yours. And didn't you model it after Gaara's Ultimate Defense?"

Temari bristled into her coffee cup as the Katon user strolled in. "And that's why I'm going, Mai. I already pre-ordered a flak jacket. And shouldn't you be wearing yours?"

Fumiko switched off the Gyudon and left the pan on the hot metal sitting, turning just in time for Mai's face to twist. "Those things suck. They restrict movement. Of course they block attacks, because you can't dodge them!" She shrugged. "Besides, it isn't required for Chuunin to wear those."

"Gyudon for breakfast, Mai. Can you get out the drinks?"

"Gyudon for breakfast? Eh, why not- everything's upside down anyway. Hey, what do you both want?"

"I've got my coffee," Temari called over her shoulder, turning towards the table.

"Do we have any peach Ramune?" Fumiko asked hopefully. The bottles were fun, the marble was fun, and the soda was just as good as any other, although the Takoyaki and Wasabi flavors were a little strange...

"Yeah."

"What about Kankuro?"

Mai scoffed, but she did so with a curling Cheshire grin. "Kankuro's late, he can get his own drink."

...

~ Rasa had learned from his mistakes- there couldn't be another Yashamaru. They'd been lucky Gaara hadn't rampaged that night. And, failed attempt at a stable jinchuuriki or not, Gaara, according to his instructors, followed most orders he didn't find meaningless. He would be a good shinobi. ~

...

Offensive seals were way too easy to create, as of late.

Once she'd figured out her block on the Heart-Stop seals- she could either pre-seal lightning styled chakra or chakra moulded into it's likeness into the seal, or she could simply use it on someone with lightning in their blood- Like Sasuke- it'd been easy to variate.

There were knockout seals that left nasty concussions and kill-seals that directly interfered with the body and seals that immobilized the opponent and exploding tags and seals that, well, sealed. Or rather, unsealed. For example, she could seal elements for later use- again with lightning, because lightning style went all too well with Suiton. So there was plenty of lightning, sealed from a donor; Ame, surprisingly, had the ability.

Most required chakra activation, but some- many- needed only a drop or two of blood. Like her glove, for instance, required a sharp pulse of chakra. That wasn't really a big deal; she exuded chakra on a seconds-basis, all she needed to do was spare a split second of concentration to unlock the kanji. But that split second could be a problem.

Whereas, her one-use only, pre-sealed to unseal seals tended to need blood. Her elemental seals, excluding the waters on her glove.

It bothered her, it really, truly bothered her to purposely think of all the ways to make killing or maiming or harming people easy. But really, she didn't even know who she would be up against- from the Storyteller's- Madara's?- declaration it sounded like they would be fighting the sealed Tailed Beasts themselves, but that seemed really unlikely.

The Akatsuki, maybe? But even they wouldn't be able to take on an entire Allied Force like this; not when their numbers were cut. Deidara, Sasori, Hidan, Kakuzu, the Peins.

They already knew of three, possibly four or five more: the Storyteller/Madara, Kisame, and Orochimaru, if the latter decided to rejoin Akatsuki, and maybe Itachi, depending on whether or not Satomi's information was even reliable.

Surely the masked man wouldn't confront the entire allied nations, from the smallest country to the most powerful? Even if they were fueled somehow with the Tailed Beast's chakras- Shukaku, the Niibi, the Sanbi, the Yonbi, the Gobi, the Rokubi, and the Shichibi- there was no way. Tailed Beasts had been defeated before, Shukaku in his Perfect Possession form had been defeated by Uzumaki Naruto alone.

But at the same time, how could Akatsuki possibly have amassed an army big enough to take on the forming Allied Forces- how could there be possibly that many missing-nin, missing persons, how could there possibly be enough people, shinobi or no, to take on literally almost a half of the Nations' known population?

It didn't make any sense, and so she was preparing for the worst options: That the Storyteller was Madara, that the Akatsuki were eighty thousand people strong, that Satomi was lying and Itachi was alive, Kisame lying in wait.

And so she painted and painted and painted, painting kanji and lines, with eight already completed and rolled up next to her, practices on how to save space in her pack; and she wasn't sure if she would put them in a flack vest pocket or if she would cram everything into easy-reach pockets of her bag, or if she would wear pouches.

Working carefully on one particular kill-seal, tracing the kanji for Water, with her twins sleeping peacefully in their crib at her bedside, with Gaara preparing for war in his office, with the world drawing breath, she noticed, with no small clench of her jaw, that her fingers, hands, arms were shaking, painting trembled lines across her paper.

...

~ Good shinobi, good, powerful shinobi, ended up infamous. Their names were printed into bingo books, actions passed by word of mouth and increased death counts. And powerful shinobi also made enemies- relatives or loved ones of those killed on orders, bounty hunters, villages whose plans had been thwarted or whose income was shrinking. ~

...

At almost one in the morning, Gaara stepped through the bedroom door, wreathed in darkness. Fumiko was awake, but she'd left off the light, since while Hiroki had woken up and was hungry Hajime had not, and she wanted to keep it that way.

"Good morning," he whispered, and she giggled air to keep the sound down.

"Good morning," she whispered back, still with her hand on the back of her baby's head to keep it secure. "You can turn the lamps on if you want, but don't turn on the big one."

He smiled, a thin flash of white teeth, and made his way across the room with a practiced ease, brushing past her with a soft hum on his way to his side of the bed. The light flickered on, filtered by the white lampshade.

"Not tired, huh?" she asked.

"Not particularly." The bed creaked as he sat down, an unusual noise for a shinobi. "It's strange sleeping so much. I'm not used to it."

"At least you don't have to worry about falling asleep on accident and destroying the village."

"Right," he said flatly. "At least there's that."

Fumiko laughed again. Hiroki continued to nurse. Fumiko didn't know if he knew his father was there or not, but she suspected the former to be true- both children responded when Gaara spoke, when he walked by, in the same way that they responded to her. Those nurses in the maternity ward had told her it was because they were used to their parents' voices from the womb.

There were a few minutes of comfortable silence after that, her laughter tapering off, but the mirth remained in her face. Really, Gaara still slept about as much as the average insomniac- a few hours a night, maybe less on some days, just like her. Unlike their early years, where an hour of sleep could lead to a different pupil or purple-sealed skin or sharper teeth.

It was only until she Hiroki was finished and she'd started to reach to put him gently back into the bed that Gaara spoke again, snagging her attention.

"Where are they going to go?"

"Who?" she asked, and after a few seconds without Gaara speaking she realized what he was talking about, then looked back down at the twins, and her now sleepy Hiroki, and she traced her fingertip across his still-chubby cheek. "Oh."

"They might not remember us," he warned. "We should leave them with someone close."

"Everyone we know are shinobi," Fumiko said quietly. "Except..."

"We can't," was his immediate reaction, sharp and defensive. "I won't."

"We don't really have any other choice, Gaara," she said firmly, straightening. "Unless we want to leave them with a stranger or a wet nurse or a hired civilian, we have to let my mom take care of them."

"I don't trust your father."

"I don't either," she said, and Fumiko could see through the shadows cast across one side of his face the way Gaara's expression pained at the statement, and his blue eyes flickered down to his lap. "But I trust my mother."

"Fumiko-"

"She loves them, Gaara." Her fingers tightened on the black wood beneath her fingers. "Even if he doesn't. I- I can ask her to leave, to stay somewhere else. Or she would if things got bad. My mother wouldn't let them grow up with anything but love."

"Ask," he conceded. "Ask them, both of them. If Fu- if your father gets hostile at all, then they aren't staying in that house. I'm sorry, but I can't take that chance. A kind stranger is better than a hateful family member."

Fumiko could feel the power, and also the past, in his words, and she let her eyes flutter to the ceiling, peppered with artwork.

"I can't take that chance, either," she admitted. "But I have to try."

...

~ In most cases shinobi would try to kill him. But that wouldn't ever work. Once word spread of Gaara's 'Ultimate Defense' as it had been coined by the people of Sunagakure, attention would turn from him to whoever he held close by to get rid of him. ~

...

It was just supposed to be a quick trip back to her old home. Probably it wouldn't have been painless, but it would have been quick, considering her criteria for staying- if her father yelled or was physically aggressive, she would leave.

Just a quick walk, maybe a half hour or less. Probably more, given how many times she would be stopped by people along the way even if she took alleyways. For that reason she'd postponed it until after lunch, making breakfast, going through her day and taking care of the twins, talking with a few people that passed her doorway in the hall. She'd made lunch for everyone and eaten in the office with Gaara.

Then Fumiko had packed up Hinata's beautiful knitted baby bag with bottles and tiny pacifiers and extra blankets, diapers and powders and wipes, and slung it over her shoulder to the hip opposite her medical pouch; affixed her pouch and settled Hajime and Hiroki inside of it, and set off.

A relatively fast walk, a relatively fast conversation, and another relatively fast walk back. Fumiko wasn't scared of her father anymore. He was just another bitter man, no better or worse than the children who'd used to bully her and Gaara, nor any stronger. There wouldn't be any hesitation; despite her better judgement she'd started planning ahead-

And then she'd come across the long-lost, long-unseen figure or her old best friend Yoshiki.

Whether or not he'd been here on purpose, whether or not he'd been tailing her because he was a ninja if nothing else and she wouldn't have noticed, whether he was angry, or whether he still even considered her a friend, Fumiko couldn't tell at first glance, but she stopped, and she let herself blink at him in shock.

And then her eyes dropped, a little guiltily, hugging her twins close.

After a stretch of a few long seconds, Yoshiki was the first to speak. "Hey, Fumiko."

She looked up. His brown hair was a little longer but still spiked, and it waved in the sandy air. Face a little more tanned than she remembered, eyes perhaps a little darker. His outfit had changed, going from his old dark brown tunic and pants to a tan collared t-shirt and a sleeveless, plain black jacket with no zipper. It hung just a little lower than the beginnings of his thighs, fabric fluttering across his knee-length dark brown sorts. Bandages wrapped from his shinobi sandals to disappear under the hem of his shorts, pinned on the left side with a kunai holster. His wrists were spotted with twisted, knotted leather bracelets.

Most of all she noticed the still clean, unscratched headband carved with Suna's hourglass symbol. Yoshiki, it seemed, hadn't seen much combat. But he'd passed his Chuunin tests; maybe, perhaps, like Mai, he just didn't want to wear his vest?

"I meant to come find you," she blurted. "After- after what I said and... I didn't forget, I swear." She chewed her lip. "I just... well, a lot's happened."

"And you didn't want to." Yoshiki nodded; his mouth pursed. "That's okay. I was being an ass, anyway. How've you been? And Lord Gaara? It's been... well, a while."

"Good. We're all good." Fumiko pulled up the fabric of her pouch. "Um... can we talk over there, or something?" She pointed with her elbow to an alley, drifted with sand and a little dark but looking relatively calm wind-and-sand-wise. "It's just Hajime and Hiroki aren't used to the sand."

"Hajime and...?" For a few heartbeats confusion showed clear on his face, and it hurt. It hurt, more than she'd thought it would, that he didn't even know her children's names when they were already all over the newspapers months ago when they'd first been born, that this boy in front of her who had once been her best friend and then one of her best friends knew nothing about her anymore save for her face enough to recognize her on the streets. But then it cleared. "Oh! Oh, yeah, definitely."

So they pulled to the side, where breaths didn't taste like burning sand, and she smiled, looking down to tickle at Hajime's neck, and he squirmed. Hiroki looked barely awake, surprisingly, he didn't seem much bothered by the sand. Fumiko's foot sank a little in a drift of sand, but that was familiar. Unless she jerked, startled or tried to run somewhere and forgot, she wouldn't trip and fall.

"I've been meaning to talk to you," Yoshiki explained without any ado, or before she could ask after his life, his ninja career, anything she didn't know any longer. "It's just... at this point, I doubt I'd have been very welcome in the Tower floor, and you never go anywhere else."

"Were you following me?" She tilted her head curiously.

"No! No. I was just heading down to get another mission assignment. Funny we met up."

"Funny, yeah."

There was awkwardness then, a wordless silence that needed noise. Fumiko shifted her weight, retucked her arms underneath her pouch. Of course it's awkward, she though to herself. The last time we spoke...

"Fumiko, answer me."

"I'm not giving up on you, Fumiko."

"Like you hadn't?"

"Then be my friend," Yoshiki said.

"What?"

"It's been over a week since he went missing."

"And you have a bad feeling, don't you?"

"No more waiting by the sand. I'm here for you now. You need to understand that!"

"If you say one more word, I will never talk to you again."

"I wanted to- wanted to apologize." he sighed and Fumiko flinched slightly with surprise, eyes shooting to zero in on his face. He'd crossed his arms, tense, eyes focused somewhere just left of her face. "I was- I was way out of line before. Like, really out of line."

"Are you just saying that because Gaara's home?" She bit down, but it wasn't quick enough to curtail the words. There was no anger, no challenge, no question. Just level, like Gaara when he spoke, just nothing.

"No. No, I mean-" His face twisted. "Ahh, cut me a break here. I'm trying to apologize."

"For what?"

"For the things I said. Insinuating Gaara was dead, I guess." Yoshiki looked even farther away, like he'd seen something interesting on the building wall behind her. "I didn't really respect what you were saying."

"You were already trying to get rid of him," he pointed out. "Like the Elders were. Just prepared to move on and close it."

"Maybe." His cheeks burned pink, and he looked down at the sand, arms still crossed. Her heart panged then. What was she doing, guilting him? Of course he'd though Gaara was dead- kidnapped and missing for days without any kind of demands.

"Sorry," she apologized. "That- that was uncalled for, too."

"Not really." Now his eyes trailed upwards to meet hers, and then he sighed, arms dropping to his side. "I've been doing it all wrong," he whispered, so that she barely heard it over the hiss and throb of the wind just nearby, beating the buildings around them.

She frowned thoughtfully. "Doing what all wrong?"

"I should've supported you instead of pushing away. That- that ruined everything."

"Yoshiki?" she asked uncertainly as the chuunin stepped closer. He spared a moment to look down, close enough now to see chubby little Hiroki and Hajime with their red hair, to see Hajime's brown eyes like her own. Then he lifted his hands to rest on her shoulders.

"I should've walked with you." There was something estranged in his eyes, not quite wild, but worn. He let out a stupid laugh, self-deprecating and sarcastic. "I'm an idiot."

"It's really okay, Yoshiki," Fumiko said, smiling genuinely now and reaching to touch one of his wrists. "You don't really have anything to apologize about. We just grew a little apart... but we can change that, too, right? Be friends again."

"Yeah," he muttered, like he was distracted. "I hope we can."

Then he took another step closer, and between himself and the twins there wasn't really even another step closer, and for a moment Fumiko was confused, remembering not to step back suddenly less she trip up her prosthetic and fall, opening her mouth to say something equally confused as his eyes closed, a squeak maybe, a question.

But then her eyes widened and she thought, Oh, no.

All at once his lips were rough and warm on hers, chapped; she noticed dimly, like he chewed on them, like hers. Her free arm clutched at his sleeve, still on her shoulder, and the other tightened around her twins in their pouch, and she pulled away but his face followed just like Gaara's did which was disturbing and then it started to deepen, the kiss, Kami, he was kissing her, get off get off get-

Fumiko let go of his sleeve to shove against his shoulder or possibly his collarbone with all the strength in her arm, and he stumbled, tripping over the very sand she'd tried not to fall into, and she stumbled back in a mirror image, yelping, before finally banging her back into the wall behind her, hot and chipped and rough.

And there she stood, spine ramrod straight, eyes wide, arms tucking around her pouch, panting.

Where she'd hit the wall, Yoshiki fell into open space, sprawling to his backside on the other side of the small dune.

"Why would you do that?" she cried before he could even finish shaking off the shock. "Why- I don't- I have my kids, Yoshiki, and you know- know! What's wrong with you?"

"Sorry," he said miserably as he pushed to a sitting position, wincing and putting a hand to his neck. "I didn't mean to."

"Sorry?" Fumiko's jaw nearly fell open. "You didn't mean to?"

"I really didn't, I swear."

"Did you just fall on me then?" Her voice was starting to hinge on hysterical, and it was upsetting Hajime and Hiroki so she had to stop and take stock of the situation before they started to cry or she started to cry, had to take a step back and look at the big huge picture.

The reason he'd grown up with that intense hatred for Gaara, the one she'd always assumed lingered only after the jinchuuriki he had been, and the way he avoided them after they came out as being a couple- so he hadn't just been busy on missions- and the way he'd tried to replace him, push him out of the frame entirely...

And take his place.

All that made sense now.

Yoshiki had liked her, and it had destroyed his side of their relationship, made him angry and jealous, scornful, hateful, bitter.

And now he just looked kind of sad sitting down in the sand, and kind of desperate. Fumiko didn't know- or really she maybe probably just didn't want to think about- what he was hoping for.

"I just wanted..."

"No, Yoshiki," she said firmly, although her voice was shaky like she'd been punched. It was so blindingly obvious what she should have done, helped him move on, explained everything, been a friend and firmly only a friend, had she only known. But she was stupid and naïve and hadn't even noticed. "... No."

Just as shakily as she spoke Yoshiki stood, and he dropped his hand from the already forming bruise on his collarbone, darkening rapidly. His bracelets slipped soundlessly into each other despite how tightly they were tied. Wheedling, gentle, hurt, he murmured: "Why not?"

"You have to know why not. Please, don't..."

"Don't what?" He demanded. Hajime whined like he could sense the hostility, like he would burst out crying at any second, and that wouldn't help at all. Fumiko lifted her hand to soothe him, petting his red hair. "Don't say anything?"

"It's okay, baby," she said under her breath.

The nervous, ticcing energy seemed to drain out of Yoshiki all at once, and his lips flattened. The hard lines about his eyes smoothed, and while his expression didn't sag, it grew heavier. "Just..." He met her eyes purposely, fingers dropping into loose fists. "Did I ever have a chance?"

Parallel to his anger, her own faded aside.

"I don't think so."

He nodded, and it looked painful. "I didn't, either."

"... I can..." she hesitated, and then she lifted her chin, held out her hand from Hajime's forehead. "I can show you why."

"Show me?"

"Just- just look at my eyes, okay?" she told him, and he did. "And don't panic."

She touched his cheek, recalling from some crystal-clear snap of memory between waking up and blowing up, recalling the heat and the happiness and idleness of being seven and she stared straight at Yoshiki's pupils, pushing towards him like a gift the image of smiling Gaara, shy Gaara, sand curled about him and a red rubber ball in his hands.

"H-hello..."

...

~ It happened all the time. Shinobi were chaste for a reason, cold for a reason. They tended not to get married even when they lived with someone and utilized emotional training to be indifferent towards the deaths of fellow ninja, teammates and no. ~

...

Quietly, quickly, eyes downcast, Fumiko made her way home.

She'd left before Yoshiki could, in the same direction she'd come from. There was no way she was going home now, no way she was going to deal with that today... it could wait. It could wait until tomorrow, or maybe next week.

Fumiko had felt his gaze on her back the entire way down the street, until she finally turned onto a different one, unable to bear the straight-shot sandy busy street that made it super easy for ninja to watch.

"Oh, Kami. Oh, shit."

"Yeah."

His eyes while she'd still been looking at him, blinking rapidly with the last final fogs of memories and office-work, had been solemn and sad and finally, for once, very, very knowing. Still dark, and maybe still a little bitter, but she didn't think he hated anyone anymore, didn't think he could be. Probably she'd tainted his emotions with her own.

Who knew what experiencing one side of an almost ten year relationship's worth of memories and emotions and feelings could do to your own way of seeing things? Like temporarily downloading an entirely different personality into your mind.

"I don't..." He'd looked down finally, eyes cutting at an angle down to the sand, fingernails picking at one knot in one of his handmade leather bracelets. "I don't feel that way. Not... not like that."

But maybe, maybe she'd helped him. Now that he knew what it felt like... what being irreversibly, constantly, unexpectedly in love, what having no expectations was like, how it was to have a real, deep, knowing relationship with someone, to the point that you knew the color of their soul and all the blemishes and bright spots hidden within it.

She smiled slightly. There was a reason she'd loved Genjutsu, and loved art, aside from it's use in shinobi tactics. A reason she still loved it. You could show anyone your side of the story, you could convey things there weren't words for, you could make something new, something old, something fantastic, something normal. Anything.

She looked down at the twins, Hajime still suspicious-looking in his periscope wandering eyes, like he knew something had been distressing but could figure out what it was. Yoshiki had felt them, too. For them through the eyes of another. Where Gaara was concerned so were the twins.

The sand burned where it slipped between her foot and her sandal, a familiar lava-hot grit that felt just as real as the wind buffeting at her hair. Heat pushed at her playfully, the sun beating out it's noontime song way above her, framed by clouds she didn't want to see.

Fumiko kind of missed looking at the sky.

"Fumiko." A voice rising above the murmurs of wind and conversation from a main street or so away. Fumiko stopped dead, toes and the metal tip of her prosthetic kicking up eddies of sand that flew off into the breeze rather than sink back down. "Can we-"

"Satomi," she said with a big long sigh. "Not right now, okay?"

When she got no reply, she resumed her careful step, almost certain that the red-headed Samurai/Shinobi rogue had left her o her thoughts. Though if she hadn't disappeared, it didn't really make much difference whether she kept on walking or not. Silence was all she wanted.

"Bye, Yoshiki. See you."

...

~ But Gaara had been tampered with. Isolation had failed. If he ever became vital to the village's wellbeing, the untrained, overly happy, obliviously protected civilian- Fumiko?- would be nothing but a liability, useless in every way but as a target. ~

...

Their ceiling now was way less colorful than the ceiling of their youth and Gaara's old room. There were no constellations or shooting stars or winged neon sheep or flowers or shapes or rainbows. A few taped pictures here and there, base sketches she'd never gotten around to painting on the worn old sandstone. She didn't even know if she was allowed to paint on the ceiling here since technically this room was hereditary to whatever shinobi happened to be Kazekage.

So staring at it was far less interesting and stimuli-intensive than it had been at thirteen or fourteen years old.

But she did anyway. Gaara didn't seem to notice, lying close enough that their shoulders and hips touched under the blanket, and the toes of the foot crossed over her stump rested against his shin, nose buried in some novel or another he'd had to blow dust off of, something he hadn't read in years.

Fumiko felt strangely embarrassed at their proximity in place of her usual glowing content.

She could still feel the ghost of it, Yoshiki kissing her with lips more like her own than Gaara's, Gaara's without a single mark or chap. Gaara didn't really bite his lips or really even speak that often; despite the wind outside they never seemed to dry out...

Kami, she hadn't wanted it.

But it had happened.

So now what was she supposed to do? Of course she couldn't never tell him, she would probably die of guilt and anxiety, but how could she tell him, either? Aside from the irrational fear the he would twist his expression at her like sneering, it was likely in all truthfulness that he would seriously try to murder her old friend.

"Gaara?" she asked hesitantly, breaking the hours-long silence. Thank Kami for his book and quick absorption or he might have noticed she was being mentally distant before she was ready.

"Hmm?" Gaara blinked, his eyes dodged to hers and then back to the pages distractedly.

"Would you be mad if I... kissed someone else?"

No sound, really, nor any warning before suddenly the blankets and cold warmth had moved and Gaara was crouching in front of her, bare feet planted on either side of her legs to take hold of her face, moving it left and right determinedly like he might find something incriminating he hadn't noticed before when she'd walked into the bedroom.

"Who touched you?" he demanded in a low voice. Stunned for a moment, tongue still against the roof of her mouth, she wondered where his book had gone. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you? What happened? Tell me."

That felt good, she decided. Automatically and without hesitation Gaara knew she hadn't purposely tried to be unfaithful, even if he'd jumped to probably the worst conclusion he could possibly come to.

"No, I'm okay."

"What happened?" he repeated. His eyes seemed to vibrate as they darted around her face, and his hands slid from her cheeks down her neck to her shoulders. In seconds flat, PJs or no, he'd gone from distractedly relaxed to intensely focused.

"Don't be mad."

"That probably means I'm going to get mad, Fumiko, so just tell me who touched you."

She hesitated, hearing the sand sluggishly starting to agitate in the bedroom, responding, as always, to Gaara's emotions. But then Gaara's steely face melted into a desperate worried plea, and she blurted, "Yoshiki kissed me."

A half-second as he registered her words. Gaara's eyes widened, then narrowed to slits.

In one of the softest voices she'd ever heard him use, he cursed. And in another smooth movement, once more soundless save for a soft tuf of sand and Gaara's thin growl, he was standing beside her, Fumiko still staring at the space he'd been in a half second before. "I'll be right back."

"Gaara, no, wait!" she yelped and reached for his wrist, grabbing wildly at his arm and gripping at his elbow instead just as he tensed. "No no, no, wait!"

"Why?" he spat.

"Because! Just hold on a second!"

"He had no right to touch you!" Gaara snarled, loud and angry so that she just knew he was either going to wake up his siblings or the twins or both and they would come crashing in here to neutralize the threat or, probably, help him hunt down Yoshiki, who granted was probably not sleeping or at his house already. "Damn it, you probably didn't even know what was going on!"

"He apologized!"

"I don't care!"

"Ga- ahh!" Fumiko pitched forward off the bed, scrambling for purchase on the covers but failing. She'd reached too far. But before she could hit the ground the already shifting sand had lifted to puff against her back. Without missing a beat she gasped, "Don't do anything bad!"

She was digging nails into his skin with her urgency, of course knowing that if he really, really wanted, he could get away and not feel a thing, but he scowled, lips lifting in a discontented angry way that made him look wild, made him look like he might rip someone's throat out.

"He deserves it. Hell, he's probably already expecting it."

"Gaara..."

"I wouldn't even regret it," he muttered.

"Gaara! I'm not letting go of you until you calm down!"

"I can wait."

"Stop it," she said sternly, pointing at him with her free hand from her spot lying down on the sand cloud suspension. "It doesn't matter anymore. What happened happened. It's over now. He understands, Gaara, really he does!"

"And that's exactly why he kissed you."

"I said cut it out!" She let her features shift into something calmer and less panicked herself, more pleading, much in the same way he had a few minutes prior. This had happened all wrong. All wrong. "You're going to wake everyone up."

He scowled again, but didn't say anything.

"He didn't hurt me, Gaara. I promise. He kissed me and that was it, nothing else, and he apologized right after. Please don't hurt him," she added desperately. Not only would her friend be dead but it would be obvious what had happened and Gaara didn't need that right now. "Just stay here. I need you. Okay? Love you."

Gaara seemed to struggle with himself, lifting his other hand, and for a second she really thought he was going to pull her fingers off his arm and leave and commit murder.

But then finally he puffed out a breath- a very irritated, frustrated, upset breath that seemed almost like another growl- and his shaking hand just dropped against her fingers tightly. "Yeah," he said. "You, too."

...

~ Rasa glanced upward as the door creaked open, followed quickly by the sound of shifting sand; feeling the familiar powerful force that was the Ichibi's chakra. His son spared him nothing but a quick, neutral glare, standing, waiting with his arms crossed for him to leave, eyes focused on the table. ~

...

"Are you certain this is a good idea?"

"Oh, it's probably a horrible idea." Fumiko disagreed, standing from where she'd knelt over her signed Bat contract, tilting her head at the kanji there. She didn't really know if other contracts were the same, but the Weasel contract at least had it as well- little dashes and squiggles that showed up around the summoner's fingerprints like so much dust and dripped ink.

As it turned out, they were compacted seals. She hadn't noticed before because, well, she'd been fourteen then and didn't know anything about compacting or magnifying seals. Two or three years ago she'd only been copying storage seals and medical tags.

And it wasn't really like she had the time to study it, or the real prowess to actually glean anything. She wasn't an expert, wasn't anywhere near that. But she was pretty certain- considering the strange symbols and words she didn't understand, and the fact that it was on a summoning contract so what else could it be for?- that it was a kind of summoning contract in in itself.

Fumiko hadn't been able to look at Uzumaki Naruto's after the fight with the Peins but- maybe.

Gaara pursed his lips, alarmed. "Would they hurt you?"

"I'm sure they could." Fumiko shrugged, pulled at her turtleneck top. "Dunno if they will, though. I'm loopholing. I promised not to summon them without their permission. Should've watched my wording. Oh well. This Sightseer's learning how to reverse summon."

"Sightseer?"

"What the bats called me. Remember?" She shrugged a little. "I'm not really sure if it's an insult or, like, an affectionate name. I think it's an insult though. Okay, ready." She four ex to look at Gaara, clapping her hands together to rid them of the sand. "So, I'm probably going to disappear, and I don't really know if I'll show up over the seal again when I come back or somewhere else, so don't freak out right away if I don't."

He smiled thinly, still looking uncertain. "And how long should I wait to start panicking?"

"I'd say probably an hour or two." She lifted her hand and bit down on her thumb hard enough to draw blood, wincing. "Ow. But that's not, you know, law."

"So let me get this straight," Gaara said flatly. "I'm here just in case you happen to pop back into the seal injured, but it could take hours before I even know if you come back, but I shouldn't panic anyway because it might take longer than that or you might've been transported elsewhere?"

"Pretty much."

Gaara's lips tightened. "Fumiko-"

"You worry too much!" she said brightly."It's fine. Everything's fine. Technically I'm not breaking my promise. And you know the bats would be a huge help if things go South fighting, ne? Communication, intelligence, sabotage, fighting support..."

"That's if they don't literally bite your head off."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?"

"The only reason you're still alive is because I'm terrifying," he deadpanned, but there was exasperation in the joke. Mostly because it was true.

Fumiko squeezed her thumb to get a slightly bigger pinprick of blood before crouching again as she made the signs and cast her hand down, pads of her fingers hovering over the marks. "Okay," she said. "See you soon. Love you."

"You too. Be safe."

"You bet." She touched her thumb down. "Let's hope this doesn't turn me inside out."

"What?"

"Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

Gaara's startled exclamation vibrated as the air wavered and then flew off as a whisper in the dark. There was a feeling of movement, of speed, like she was being yanked by the chakra hard, and it almost hurt except there was nothing physical save for the turning of her stomach and she was spinning and spinning and-

Slam!

A half second later she landed hard on the ground like she'd somersaulted out of the air the side of her face, chest and hands smacking off something hard like stone. Her momentum was so great that her legs lifted in the air above her as her back curved. There was a moment without gravity where she thought she'd turn all the way over herself, but then her body fell sideways and hit the ground with another thud.

The sound of skittering pebbles and stones and the echo of her startled shrieks remained long after she'd stopped rolling, bouncing off what seemed like so many walls or somethings that it reverberated in the air.

Dazed, she rolled onto her back, lifting her hands up in front of her face, feeling the burn in her palms and cheek that meant she'd scraped them raw. But she couldn't see her hands. Or anything, really, she realized, eyes darting about wherever she was, but it was only pitch, pitch black.

"Right," she muttered breathlessly. "Right, right- bats."

There was a sudden rushing sound like ocean. Not that she'd been to the ocean more than twice, but it sounded like a really dry ocean. The rustling was followed quickly by a burst of air that flipped her hair over her face.

This sound was quickly followed by another, still made vibrato by the dry-sheets noise. "Sightseer?"

Fumiko coughed, brushing her hair back over her shoulders as she sat up, propped by her other hand. The floor was freezing cold, and she thought that maybe it actually was stone. "Shaapu? I think that's your voice..."

"How did you possibly manage to summon yourself to the Grotto?"

"Somethin' on the scroll. What's that noise? Where's the Grotto? Is there like a light somewhere or-"

A sharp sound, familiar. Shaapu's irritated noise, a huff of air. "There is no light in Makurayami Douketsu. The Summoners are not welcome here."

"Peace, Shaapu. Leave the child be." Fumiko blinked, although really it didn't make a difference. She could practically feel her pupils dialating to the point of pain, because there really was no light at all whatsoever, a nearly impossible feat so far as she knew... no wonder these bats were blind. It also explained the freezing cold. She couldn't tell where the new voice, raspy and old, was coming from, it echoed all around.

"Who's that? Hello."

"Elder Sageyoku-"

"Hello, Sightseer. What's your name?"

"Fumiko. I'm sorry, where are you? I can't tell if I'm looking at you or not..."

"Why are you here?" Shaapu's voice rang impatiently. "You're disturbing our sleep."

Shakily Fumiko stood, slowly running her fingers over the grotto ground and moving her foot and prosthetic to the sides inch by inch because she was just as blind as those bats, only without echolocation. Briefly she tried sensing through her escaping chakra, but she could only gasp at the sheer number of signatures- bats, everywhere, hundreds, maybe thousands. How big was this place?

But all she could sense was the bats chakra; not even see the bats themselves or anything nonliving around her. So she was slow, because noise only echoed the way it was now when the floor was just as hollow as the space above her head, and she could sense signatures far beneath her. She was probably standing on some kind of big rock formation...

It was, needless to say, a little terrifying. Just a little.

Both animals, and a few others whose voices she didn't recognize, gasped themselves, and she realized that her prosthetic was screeching across the floors and oh sugar sensitive ears.

"Sorry! Sorry!" she scrambled to stand straight, wincing at the noise. "Just is there- am I near an edge?"

"Why. Are. You. Here."

"I wanted to talk," she said finally, lifting her hands up to feel the air around her. As the noise settled down- it had to have been the bats making those sounds, their wings ruffling as they dragged out of sleep- she could hear something else, the drip-drip of water off stalagmites. Close by, too, so there were probably at least small puddle-pools...

"About what, Fumiko-Sightseer?"

"I promised Shaapu that if he helped me find Gaara- the, uh, sand one- that I wouldn't summon any of you without permission..." Fumiko laughed slightly, it bounced and vanished. "I didn't realize until way later that I wouldn't be able to get your permission without summoning you. But then I found the stuff around my blood prints and realized they were-"

"Summoning seals," 'Elder Sageyoku' said sagely. "They appear alongside each summoner's blood. Ah, I'd almost forgotten... You're a clever Sightseer, aren't you?"

"What? Um. Thank you." She smiled, even though she knew they would only see it if they spoke while she was grinning. This was so strange- it was starting to feel more and more like her body was nonexistent, voiceless and void like the bats' words. "I have to hurry. Gaara'll get worried if I stay very long."

If she'd had vision, Fumiko was pretty sure she would've seen the Elder bat nodding. She didn't really know if they put a huge amount of importance on her relationship with Gaara- from what she'd figured out, most species of bats were Polyamorous, but for all she knew Summons bats were different than normal bats. "Of course, Fumiko-Sightseer."

"So, do you guys keep up with human politics?"

"No. We don't engage ourselves in Shinobi's problems."

Fumiko jumped at the new voice, soft and female if not a little scratchy. There was a breeze against the back of her neck that ruffled her hair over her shoulder, announcing the new bat's presence. It seemed every bat was taking interest in the conversation. Or maybe the ones she was speaking to were really important?

"Can bats fall under Genjutsu? Err, Summons bats, I know normal bats can."

"Every living creature can be put under a Genjutsu, Sightseer-child," the female said. "As long as they have senses to manipulate. Why do you ask?"

Okay, so it sounded like this one probably liked her about as much as Shaapu did, if there was anything to pull from her equally impatient, condescending tone. That was fine. It was possible this Elder was the only one who tolerated her. Well, the only one she'd met so far, anyway.

"Because we're kind of going to war against Uchiha Madara, or at least that's who he says he is..." Fumiko groped across hr neck until her fingers wrapped around Neji's prism, totally useless here but comforting nonetheless. "I was stuck in a sand shield when he showed up. But if he's telling the truth, his big plan is to stick the entire world in some kind of Genjutsu world. He's calling it project Tsuko No Mei."

"Tsuko No Mei?" There was a frown in the Elder's rough old voice, and she nodded. "Madara has been dead for decades. It isn't possible."

"Possible or not," she pressed, "Either way he's planning to revive the Ten Tails. He's already got Bijus one through seven. The only jinchuuriki left are Killer B and Uzumaki Naruto."

"Is that why they took your mate?" Shaapu asked sharply. "He held the Ichibi's power."

"Not any more, he doesn't. They killed him to get Shukaku. An Elder in our village brought him back with a life transferring technique." She drew in a breath, sighed into the blackness. The Grotto of Total Darkness was aptly named. "I came here because I think we're gonna need all the help we can get."

...

~ Unfortunately, it appeared he was stuck between his son's reckless anger and a future inter-village issue. The problem itself, which Rasa knew was in his son's bedroom, could not be solved. So without a word, he left, pushing through the same door Gaara had come in. ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins
> 
> Fyi all my actual author's notes are over on FF net under Pikapixie the demigod, I just haven't been copy pasting them over most of the time


	22. Fear

...

~ "Face it, he's just as bad as everyone says he is!" ~

...

"Her entire strategy revolves around avoiding attacks, Temari, not brunting through them."

"I'm just saying I think she needs thicker flak."

"Thicker flak is fine, but not all this shoulder and neck and waist protector nonsense!" Mai huffed. "She's not incapable, geez."

"The neck guard, at least."

Mai disagreed. "Shoulder straps, for sure. She's got a sheath, remember."

Fumiko was perfectly content to watch them bicker. In the end, she would pick something out of whatever they amassed and that would be it. But other than basics she really didn't understand the less obvious benefits of each and every kind of suna-issue flak and weaponry and uniform piece, so it was better to let Mai and Temari duke it out and find appropriate protection.

She knew that she was here fore a flak jacket, some kind of fishnet covering, maybe a more guarded sheath since archer's sheaths weren't necessarily capable of blocking blades. A bigger medical pack with more pockets on the inside, new supplies, pants woven through with the course, tough fabric used in shinobi clothes.

"Fine! We'll let her try both and she can decide." Temari rolled her eyes, dropped another jacket into the cart. It was odd, using a cart for shinobi clothes, but they were thick and they were heavy. "What about wire? She's got some long hair."

Mai tugged her earring absently, casting a narrow eyed look Fumiko's way. Fumiko straightened under the scrutiny with a smile, blinking, and her sister sighed, shaking her head. "She would forget, or reach back for her staff and tear up her hand. That's the last thing she'll need."

"Ugh. You're cutting everything down."

"I'm sorry, do you know her better? Please, be my guest; I guess I've only known her all my life."

"Yeah, yeah. Fishnet?"

"No arm guards, so let's try long sleeves."

And so it went, up and down the aisles- less like aisles and more like cubbies in the wall with folded things in them with bins and racks of weapons in the center of the room, but still- and as they went, the two kunoichi picked out things for themselves as well, Mai jumping on a tight-looking fishnet armor shirt with sleeves that would go all the way down to her wrists; Temari added fishnet, a thick black shirt, a flak vest with shoulder guards.

Fumiko trailed after them, picking up as she went from the bins a tougher sheath, another sandal. The ninja tool and supply sections- the areas with pouches, packs, bags, holsters- was all the way by the door, so it would probably be a while before they made it there. Temari and Mai's ideas of proper cover were night and day different, and they argued over every piece.

"Oi, any color preferences for pants?" Her sister called without looking, hands both in different cubbies. "Brown, tan, sand, black, blue?"

"Blue."

"They should be baggier," Temari said immediately.

"Do you want her to trip?"

"We can cut the bit off by her prosthetic!"

"Loose," Mai amended. "Enough to confuse an attack, but not baggy."

"You know, she isn't you," Temari pointed out. "Just because you don't wear sleeves or guards like an idiot-"

"I'm not giving her any leather, am I?"

"That would actually be better!"

"Too stiff," Mai dismissed with a distracted wave as she pulled something out of a cubby to inspect it. "She already has a hard... Tight weave, thin shin guards sewn in. Nice."

They were currently browsing through one of the many supply warehouses in Suna. Apparently, the way the kunoichi had explained it to her, every ninja- her included, now- was entitled to a basic allowance of materials. If there was a poor shinobi, nobody wanted to send them out without armor.

Sufficient flak, armor, necessities like shoes and pouches and sealing paper. Everything had a point system; and as they advanced Genin, Chuunin, Jonin, and Tokubetsu Jonin were given a bigger and bigger pool of point limits- once you hit the quota when you added everything up, you had to buy out the difference.

It wasn't like it mattered, though. They all had enough to buy everything without any points.

Hajime and Hiroki were with Kankuro and Gaara, who she'd last seen hanging out together in the rec room, Gaara taking a much needed break from paperwork and Kankuro, well, he'd already been there. She wondered absently how the twins were doing. They loved Gaara, and Kankuro was great with them, and, she figured someday, would be better when they were old enough to appreciate puppet shows...

"Is fishnet all you're getting?" Temari didn't sound impressed in the least. Mai shrugged, putting up her palms.

"I have more stuff at home, so just relax. I'm not stupid. Plus I've survived well enough without it anyway."

"Says the one with a dinner plate scar on her stomach."

Mai scowled at the sarcasm. "Hey, that was an Akatsuki summons; I doubt it would've mattered what I was wearing!"

...

~ Mai flinched. "No he's not! Why won't anyone believe me?" ~

...

Eventually, they left her at the curtained off section of the warehouse to sort through and try on the piles of things and went to look at some of the other things, weighing options they hadn't before.

And sort through them she did. Fumiko discarded probably more than half of the flak jackets, fishnet, armor pieces, and pants before she even tried anything on. No shoulder guards, she agreed with Mai on that. They would be heavy, stiff, hard to work around without any time to adjust to them. She couldn't have full-length fishnet sleeves, either, not if she wanted to wear her seal glove.

Most of the armor was put to the side. She'd only ever trained without it; arm guards and straps would mess her up and make her staff slip on attacks. She couldn't wear any flak without pockets and vial stashes.

Eventually she was left with a few decent sized piles. Fumiko really did try on a few of the jackets with neck guards, but they were rough, itchy, tight, and, she knew, would be hot in the heat of battle. She vastly preferred the simple strapped ones. Where she couldn't dodge, she could rely on a fishnet top to keep any non chakra-enhanced blades from stabbing through.

She ended up with three, but there was no agonizing decision: one had clamps sewn into the back for a sheath, and it was made for a right-handed grab, the same as she usually wore her sheath. The one she'd picked out, if she unclipped the strap, fit perfectly.

She ended up with a half-sleeve fishnet; full torso and stopping at her elbows. It felt odd but not horrible, and if it stopped her from getting stabbed by projectiles and swords and knives...

The blue pair of pants she decided on were surprisingly soft, but after a quick experiment with the kunai at the end of her staff she realized they didn't tear or rip at all easily. It was going to take some serious chakra blade to cut through it near the end of her leg... the shin guard, invisible but definitely there, would protect her other leg from getting cut out.

Everything else was miscellaneous and generic; dark blue kunai holster and bandages to tie them on, the bag with extra pockets, random weapons like shuriken and kunai- which actually were pretty varied, some lighter, heavier, bigger, smaller- but otherwise quickly grabbed.

As she stepped out in her pieced-together uniform- pant leg rolled up above her prosthetic- and pushing aside the curtain, she saw Temari, already changed and moving about her arms to test maneuverability. She glanced over, and blinked.

"Whoa," she said. "Apparently, you can look intense."

"It all look good?" That was Mai's muffled voice, from the curtain Temari stood next to.

"Yeah, looks like it fits fine." Temari frowned. "You seriously didn't want any of the protective gear? Arm and leg guards-"

"Gah, this fishnet is too loose."

"Mine fits perfectly," Temari commented, holding out her arms to admire the fabric. "I'll get this."

There was irony somewhere in that, a kind of deja vu, but it took a few seconds for Fumiko to figure out why.

Temari admired her soft purple, regular length short-sleeved kimono sewn with small black circles and a yellow obi. "It's a kunoichi thing, Fumiko. Actually, you of all people should be carrying a weapon. I think I'll get this one."

She paused, and looked down, lifting her hands. The fishnet drew back slightly with the movement. the vest was tight, but the fabric itself baggy enough to keep the metal implants from being constrictive.

Definitely, she thought sadly, not a kimono.

They'd been so... well, not exactly carefree, Temari and her sister had spent most of that clothes shopping trip trying to convince her to bring weapons and talked so casually about kidnapping and murder, but still. There wasn't the heavy anxiety there was now, the one that filtered through the air, saturated the wind like the sand that blew through it.

If they didn't win this...

No more festivals.

No more freedom.

No more anything.

The curtain drew back with a rattling sound that made her jump, and she dropped her hands. It was only Mai coming out with the fishnet top over her arm. The black-haired ninja glanced her way and grinned, sharp and pleased.

"Never thought I'd see the day," she said, though her voice was hard to decipher, not quiet but soft. Then she shook her head. "Go get five or six more of everything, okay? You can seal it up for the war."

It was a long second before she registered that last part and nodded. "Right."

...

~ "Because you're stupid, Dance," the older boy scoffed, shaking his head. "And apparently blind too." ~

...

Fumiko took a deep breath, standing on the doorstep of her old house.

And another.

In either arm she held a twin, and her knitted baby bag was slung over one shoulder with the pouch inside. She'd walked hunched and walked quickly. Hajime gripped some of her shirt in his little hand, completely unaware of the storm behind his mother's eyes. Hiroki for once was the quiet one, blinking at the door.

Gaara had offered to both go and, when she declined, watch the kids at home.

But as much as this was for her to deal with on her own, it completely and entirely revolved around the twins. She didn't know what she was expecting- for her father to see them and fall in love? Maybe if they'd looked more like her, but... whatever he hated in Gaara, he would see in both boys.

But her mother, at least, loved them. Loved them to death. Hopefully loved them enough to do what she was about to ask.

Rather than keep the kids at home, Fumiko had instead requested he put the crib and all the supplies back into the nursery and hang the mobile she had made, with thinly stuffed sewn fabric birds and puffy white clouds made with quilt batting. And she had already asked Sunako to make up two separate rooms on the main living floor, just in case.

Three weeks left until they departed for Kumogakure.

One more deep breath, and then she set her mouth and kicked the door lightly, one, two, three, with her prosthetic, and then she waited.

There was a telltale set of footsteps from somewhere in the house, and she winced. That wasn't her mother's soft tread, but that was her voice saying "Fukuda, who's at the door?"

A strained, tense three seconds wait on the doorstep, waiting, before it opened. For a moment, as always, her father looked normal, not smiling by any means but not hostile or angry, just curious at who was at the door at six in the afternoon. They would've already eaten dinner.

And then he recognized her, and up came the guarded cool resentment.

"... Hi."

"What do you want?"

"We haven't really talked since... Well, you know."

"Yes. I do." Her father's eyes narrowed slightly, arms crossed against his chest like he was trying to block her out. "The last time you came here, you attacked me."

"You attacked me first." she said softly. Hajime hiccuped at her, chubby fingers tugging at her necklace, and she let her arms jiggle lightly to bounce him. In her other arm Hiroki cooed. "Can I come in? Please?"

Voice mocking, he sniffed, "You left the house."

"I'm going to war, dad." Fumiko said bluntly at last. "In three weeks, I am going to war. I'm going to war. I just wanted to try one last time..."

"Try what?"

"You know what," she said quietly. "Let me in, please. I want to talk to mom."

"I'm sure you do," he said. Another silence. Fumiko watched and waited, intent to catch any malevolence, any surface anger. If it came out she would leave, maybe without a word- she didn't really know what she would do.

But then he grunted and stepped back, letting the door swing open, and with a quick word of thanks and a jerky nod she stepped inside.

There was an... oddness in the air between them, a coolness. Her anxiety didn't grow, she didn't shrink away, there was no hopeful smile on her face. It was true that the last time she'd been here had been the first time she'd fought back, and, she supposed, it made sense a lot of things had changed since then.

There were far, far more important things to worry about now than her father's embitterment.

Namely, the two small people in her arms, and their father, and her sister. Everyone.

The world, if she really wanted to be honest with herself.

"Who was it?" her mother's voice called from the kitchen, and she managed another smile before calling, "It's me, mom! And I brought the twins over. I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"

"Fumiko?" came her incredulous reply, and then her head poked out from the entrance into the hall, and when she registered them standing there she brightened and scooted out into the living room. Her apron was stained with sauce, hair tied back loosely. "No, no, of course not! Just cleaning up!"

Fumiko was taller than she had been the last time she was here. It was a little surprising- she hadn't even noticed the height change; everyone around her had been growing as well- but here, in this warm, comfy cozy old house, she felt huge. Or maybe it was that the house felt small.

"Hi," she said.

Her mother beamed. "And how are Hajime and Hiroki doing? Still healthy as ever? And bigger, I see!"

She started over, and took maybe three or four steps before she noticed the for once serious look on her daughter's face, and paused. Her eyes, brown like Fumiko's own, flicked away from her figure, and she knew her mother was looking at her father, trying to gauge, realizing that wait- why were the twins here?

"Mom," she said. "I have something kind of important to tell you, and I doubt Mai has."

Mitsuwa Hanako seemed to wilt. "I know," she said. "She's been promoted. She's going to war with Akatsuki." She started to wring her hands, still a little wet-looking from whatever she'd been cleaning. "I hope she stays with Gaara-"

"No, mom," Fumiko interrupted, then paused. "Um, well, yeah, that too, but..."

"What is it, honey?"

"She's going too," came her father's gruff voice behind her, and Fumiko jumped. Oh, right; she'd just told him at the door. But that wasn't how she'd wanted to do it, not while her mother was standing there in her apron and that sad look on her face. "She's going off to fight with all the ninja."

"What?"

Fumiko winced, propped the twins up again, said nothing just long enough for her mother to open her mouth again.

"You can't! It's too dangerous! You never went to the Academy and you aren't even a registered ninja!" Then her eyes widened as Fumiko's mouth opened, and she groaned. "Did Gaara promote you? Mitsuwa Fumiko! You're a mother now, you can't-"

"I have to."

"- leave them here like- what?"

"I can't let them get hurt," she said quietly. "Not when I can help."

"So you're both leaving two infants on their own?" Her father's voice was unimpressed, shocking in the momentary silence, and she turned to face him. His arms were crossed, face set into a hard line, standing, she noticed, in front of the door. Mai was not here; she'd timed it so Mai wouldn't be here. "To protect them? And the Kazekage's letting you?"

"I'm surprised you care."

"You're doing exactly what the Fourth did," he said, disgust clear in his voice. "Leaving something dangerous to grow up all on it's own with nobody that loves them so they can turn rotten and-"

"Don't you dare."

Fukuda- her father- flinched, but then steeled again. "Just like Gaara."

Fumiko nearly vibrated with her anger, but she did nothing, only held the twins closer when they started to whine, sensing her discontent. The nerve- the absolute nerve to accuse that she didn't love them, that Gaara didn't love them; comparing Gaara to his father when they were nothing alike and when that was one of his greatest fears.

To become a heartless, analyzing, critical, unloving...

... bastard.

That's what Rasa had been to his son.

She took a deep breath through her nose and turned back around to face her mother. It didn't matter what her father thought. It didn't matter at all. He had no say. No right.

"I have something I need to ask you."

Her mother's lips were white, but pinkened again as she opened them. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, and, Fumiko recognized, afraid. "... what is it?"

"I wanted to ask you if-" She hesitated. "I mean ask if you could-... if they could..."

"Stay here?" Her mother's eyes softened.

"No," Fumiko managed, and she shook her head once and took another breath, ignoring the laser gaze on her back. "I wanted to ask you, as my mother, if you could please watch my boys, please, while I'm gone. And, as my mother..." She hesitated again, then spoke softly, "If you could do it alone, at the Tower."

"What?" her father bellowed, swamping her mother's squeaked 'what, Fumiko?' and his seal of silence broke, one foot stomping in what was either a step forward or the start of a tantrum; or quite possibly both. "You-"

"Daddy," she said, voice neutral. "Honestly I don't want you anywhere near them."

"Did the Kazekage tell you that?"

"No," she said firmly, and she almost sounded a little like Gaara, stern and quiet and cold. "I just don't want you near them."

"Fumiko..." Her mother's face had whitened, and now she gripped the fabric of her apron with a deathly hold, wrinkling the colored stains. "... Honey, I..."

"When I was growing up," she said, "Dad made me feel horrible. Sometimes I felt like he didn't love me. Like I was nothing. Not always, but in a couple moments, he did." Her expression didn't change, but she felt her voice waver instead. "I don't- I don't want them to go through that," she murmured. "I don't want them to think they're not loved."

"You're abandoning them and you want them to think they're loved?"

Her eyes raised to the ceiling at her father's harsh tone, and then she closed them, hugging the twins tighter. "I'm leaving them in the care of my mother," she said softly. "And I'm going to protect them with everything I've got. Just like Gaara is. And Mai. And everyone."

"That's the most ridiculous-"

"Fumiko-chan," her mother, for once, interrupted him. And that was enough to startle her, make her open her eyes and meet her mother's serious ones. It had been a long, long while since she had used honorifics. "As your mother..." Her voice faded, but then strengthened all at once alongside her gaze, and she nodded. "I'd be honored if you let me."

Another breath through her nose, ignoring her father. Stinging in her eyes.

"Thank you."

...

~ "M-my name's not Dance..." ~

...

Fumiko bit her lip as Hajime sucked on a bottle of formula, thinking how strange it was not to have the need.

Over the last month or so, she had worked to wean both twins off breastmilk. There was still a few wayward bottles in the fridge- and by few she meant probably twelve or thirteen for when both boys got finicky and anxious and cried. But now they accepted formula.

As much as the twins, she'd had to wean herself. She'd fed once or twice a day for a while, and with that time the discomfort had lessened and lessened to those one or two feeds a day. Eventually she'd stopped all together, pumping when the discomfort itself was too much, using those bottles to feed them with when they refused formula.

And now she felt no need. Her chest, again, had changed, growing smaller, almost where it had been before. The same with the rest of her body, slowly but surely losing the extra fat and skin. It wasn't exactly back to normal, but it was close, leaving behind only a few curves she hadn't had before- not that she'd had many before.

At least she could put on her flak jacket without it hurting.

When he finished, Fumiko put him gently back into his crib. It was early, maybe one or two in the morning. She waited a few minutes more, singing quietly under her breath until she knew he was asleep, before leaving the nursery, closing the door quietly behind her to avoid waking them up again, and heading back to the bedroom.

Gaara wasn't done with working yet; was probably not even close. So she was alone with every light on, digging back under the blankets for the warmth. On this level of the Tower, she couldn't hear any of the nighttime noise, too high for the floating voices and sounds to reach. But that was okay.

She hummed quietly to herself under her breath, reaching back over to the nightstand to pick up her pet projects once more, cuts of unbraided leather in a shoebox. They were different colors, stained by the sun in piles, some lighter and some dark, but all shades of brown.

In the corner of the box there were two stones, different shades of blue. One was dark and cool-colored like the sky and deep water, the other, a creamy light teal like Gaara's eyes. They were chakra stones, and although they really weren't useful for much- the amount they held couldn't really even be used as a jutsu; maybe as a boost for your own chakra type or as a burn of momentary extra energy.

At this point, Fumiko really had enough seals with already-packed away elements to last her a decent amount of fights, especially if she didn't rely on them for elemental-affiliated seals and techniques. If she'd wanted more she would've just made more seals, not rely on something as unpredictable and small as a chakra stone.

But these weren't for the fight. Not in the way that they would actually be used.

Fumiko pulled out a half-braided strand of four thick leather strips and set back to work, threading new colors into the weave.

...

~ "Right, right. Mai- true Love." He said it with a nasty sarcastic lilt that made the other two laugh. Mai flushed. ~

...

Over the next two and a half weeks, they spent as much time with the twins- and each other- as they possibly could.

Gaara had little left to do; approve the arriving shipments he had ordered, sign off on the requests of everyone leaving on that last day. But communication was quiet between the Kage and the villages. Nothing else could be done. It was unspoken in the air, the tension, the unease.

Are you ready?

The twins couldn't really play. They were only five months old, almost six, and they were premature, not fully developed or grown in the way that most five months old were. They smiled at their parents now beyond reflex, and at Mai and Temari and Kankuro's voices. They recognized. They knew.

Mai complained less about holding them, and Fumiko didn't really know if it was because she was less cared of dropping them or more scared of not coming back. She wasn't sure how to feel about that- she was happy Mai was coming. Fumiko would've been disappointed if she couldn't. This was her sister's kind of thing to do, her kind of thing to deal with.

But of course she would still be, if not scared, than nervous. At least until the fighting started, the enemy was a big unknown, and the unknown was almost always scarier than reality. In the dark, chairs turned into monsters. Mai didn't do well with unnamed monsters, but as soon as they turned the light on...

Gaara held them all the time, in his arms, on his lap, on their chests and on their backs and always holding their heads up, always with his lips moving whenever he thought no one was looking. The touch, the contact, the feathery state of their skin, it was all something even Fumiko knew they would forget.

But they could try to remember. In the battlefield, if there was blood, if there was panic, if there was death, Fumiko would try to remember this. Brown eyes peering up at her, small Gaaras smiling.

And at the end of those two and a half weeks, her mother would come, and take up residence on the main living floors. Sunako had already taken apart the extra room she'd hoped to fill, but one still remained, on the other side of the nursery.

They would know, despite everything they wouldn't know, their home.

War had seemed so far away, until all of a sudden, it didn't. Now it seemed right around the corner, ready to snatch away every quiet moment, every giggle, every breakfast and hug and shared look. It was the trio again, Fumiko, Gaara, Mai, just like before, only now there was Kankuro, Temari, just like the most recent years, and, new, there were the twins, just as welcome.

Temari was only caught, once, crying in the nursery at six in the morning, Hiroki screaming his lungs out because he was hungry.

Are you ready?

She was, quite honestly, terrified, and tried to brand every sunlit sand grain dance, every rough feel of the walls of her home, the colors of all of her pictures and paints, the warmth of blankets, into her memory.

No. No, not yet.

...

~ The adults were wrong. School wasn't a safe haven. She had figured that out a long time ago. School was one big sandbox and these boys were bigger than her, stronger than her, meaner. ~

...

She woke with a start, eyes snapping open, sucking in a sharp breath that sounded more like a growl than a gasp.

After a moment, Mai recognized the cracks of her new ceiling, the darkness compared to the starkness of her dreams. She held that breath, let it out slowly, and then, drawing in a third, took stock of her body.

Rapid heartbeat. Sweat. The warm tingle of adrenaline. Every sign of fear aside from tears.

She sat up silently, bracing her arms behind her on the mattress, and stared at the far wall of her small new apartment. Once again, she had no calendar, but it didn't mean she wanted to wake up some days now anymore than it did when she was younger.

After a second she let out another long pant, then brought up one hand to her forehead. Another long minute or three passed, and then she let her fingers finally trail down her face so she could open her eyes and look out the window with an irritated grunt. It was one of those moonless nights, it seemed, full of stranger clouds from other places.

It wouldn't be sunrise for hours yet. Stupid nightmares. She scowled.

"Of all the nights to... ugh."

"Mew."

Mai let her hand drop all he way to the soft, furry head of her cat, who sat uncertainly beside her waist, tail twitching anxiously. He mewled again with the attention, letting his ears be ruffled side to side.

It was so quiet here, compared to the hums of her old house. She'd only just moved in, and now she was leaving.

Hours until sunrise, and a few more before the March.

That's what the other shinobi were all calling the massive move from Suna to Kumo. Every Sunagakure shinobi signed on to the Allied Forces, give or take a few cowards who would duck out last second and bravehearts not ready to fight but playing stowaway anyways, was going to Kumogakure at the same time, the same day.

'March' was fitting enough, she supposed. She wondered if they would meet any other foreign shinobi along the way- theirs was the farthest hidden village from Cloud, they would have to travel all the way across the Nations, over Wind, Fire, Lightning, and all the smaller countries in between.

"Come on, Cat," she sighed. "It's a little earlier than I thought it would be, but hey, expect the unexpected, eh?"

Cat only blinked at her, then protested loudly when she swept him up, not quieting until he was settled on his shoulder. She swung her legs out over the side of the bed and stood, not bothering to make her bed and fix the rumpled blankets. She wasn't even dressed yet, wearing only her pale yellow night shirt and black sweatpants, but it wasn't like that mattered. She would come back before the March.

On the way to the door she picked up Cat's litterbox, which he finally used now and that could be carried with a handle on the top and a reinforced shinobi-thread bag with a few toys, litter, and a food bag in it, and her own shinobi bag.

It was rare that she went anywhere without her swords, but the Lands were Allied. The chances of getting attacked by a foreign shinobi...

Slim enough to rely on her taijutsu at least.

Without ever turning the light on, she left, locking the door behind her. In the dark, cool, still sandy air stereotypical of a Suna night, she stopped, letting it ruffle her hair, and turned her head to look at her cat, who looked right back, then grinned.

"Okay," she said seriously. "You are the Keeper now, got it?"

With one hand, she reached up and popped open the rectangle locket of Cat's collar, then slipped her house key from it's place pinned between her index and middle fingers to the compartment with a small, metallic clatter that vanished into the heavy air, then snapped it shut.

"Mrow." Cat shook his head and the collar jingled.

"Shh," she said with a quirk of her lips, knowing that if someone really looked they would realize that the roof had a trapdoor with a broken lock, but also not really caring because the only things in there to steal were the punching bags, boxes, random clothes, and her bedspread. Even then, a good forty percent of her stuff was still at her other house.

With that, she pulled him into her arms and leapt to the wall of the nearest building at shunshin-speed, ricocheting to another until she was finally on the roofs and she could really run off the last of that leftover shakiness.

The cool air felt fantastic. Yes, Mai loved the desert and it's tangible heat but sometimes it was smothering. There wasn't any light at all, still pitch black, starlight and moonlight and all light blocked by those unusually large clouds. It would rain, she could smell it, but not before they'd already left.

Shiragiku would say that contrary to popular belief, the rain was considered good luck in tons of myths and lore, and that rain appearing over a place like the desert at the backs of warring shinobi would bring them victory and blah blah blah. It was stupid and superstition didn't make any sense, but she would take what she could get.

"You can't do anything. You're just a kid. How are you supposed to win a war?"

"I can fight!"

"How many important fights have you ever won?"

It was a dumb dream. Mai couldn't even remember most of it, she just knew that it, along with every other nightmare she'd ever had, was stained in blood. Why she couldn't just have normal nightmares about going to school naked she didn't know, but whatever it was she was glad at least the blood she would be facing would be real and not fake.

In no time at all she was at the Tower. Almost absentmindedly, her skin shivered, but the cold didn't really bother her. She'd been colder before. In the Land of Iron, yeah, but in the dead of a Suna night, in the forest in the dark, in freezing cold lakes with water pressing against her skin and in her lungs.

Mai dropped to the dunes, Cat still tucked securely in her arms to keep him from falling, jerking, or jumping away, then straightened from her crouch to survey the doors. Closed, possibly locked at the late hour...

They were. Damn. Waste of chakra to absorb the impact of her landing. So instead she went up alongside the wall, casting a look now and then down at the street to make sure she wouldn't get shot down as a suspected enemy nin trying to break into the Kage Tower, darting across the surface of the sand plaster until she reached the aviary door.

Stealthily, she crouched beside it in an odd way, feet vertical against the wall but butt against her heels in an upright position like she was standing on the ground. She peeked around the side of the window.

No aviary guys, which was weird. Maybe they'd gotten a last minute message and went off to get it translated.

She tested the window, and it popped open, revealing that yes, the aviary workers were still on duty and would probably be back any second. Mai slipped inside into the brightly lit room, and a single bird squawked as she slid it shut again behind her.

Cat meowed at her, and she shushed him again.

Ignoring the ruffled birds and hawks, she much more casually left the room, clicking the door shut as she left and heading to the stairs. If they caught her now, in the lights, they would recognize her and probably not care. She would rather not be seen, but...

Mai readjusted her hold on the bags on her wrists and the empty litterbox in her hand. Cat scampered from her slightly weighed down arms back to her shoulder, pawing at her ear. For once, she let it be.

Down, down the stairs and past the office and down more stairs until she hit the living floors.

The closest room to the staircase was empty, not occupied by anyone nor made up for anyone, so she stopped in their, dropped the bag of toys and one blanket from her room on the unmade, naked mattress, and the litterbox on the ground up alongside the wall. The litter she put next to the box, the food on a dresser against the far wall to keep Cat from getting at it.

Arms finally unencumbered, she drifted to the bed, where Cat had leapt to curl up and sit on, and pet the top of his head. She smoothed down his ear, and he looked up at her curiously, blinking his big gold eyes that Fumiko said were almost the color of her chakra.

"I'm going away for a while," she whispered, well aware she was surrounded by rooms with ninja in the dead of night. "You stay in the Tower, okay? Mom's coming."

"Mew."

"Don't follow me out the aviary window when I leave, got it?"

"Mew?"

"And bite anyone that tries to touch your collar except mom." Mai grinned, but it was small. Cat was... well, Mai didn't get what the whole fuss about dogs was- cats were great, and he followed her and slept with her and listened probably intently to her rants and never said anything back but mewls.

In any case, he wouldn't end up like Yami's- her taicho's- old blind cat.

She turned abruptly and left, hand dropping from Cat's head. He meowed in protest, and she heard the soft thud as he jumped off the bed to trail her, which was fine. As long as he stayed on this floor it didn't matter if he followed her or not for now.

Even quieter than before, Mai gently opened the door to the nursery.

It was dark as well. This entire level was, none of the lights were on. Still, she could make out the murals and designs and paints, done in bright primary colors, and the stars on the ceiling, done in white and gold. Cat padded in after her as she slipped inside.

Automatically, she glanced at the window. Left, her bigger blind spot, then right. She purposely didn't do a scan to sense for chakras, it would definitely wake up someone.

Bases covered and safe, she wandered over to the crib and peered inside, hugging herself in the cold of the building.

The twins were sleeping, perfectly unaware of their surroundings. Bigger than they once had been, but still ridiculously small. Her lips pursed. They would be so much bigger when she got back.

She felt bad for Fumiko. Everyone was getting so angry with her, for her choices. And she would miss everything if this war lasted very long, might well not be there for the first words and the first steps and the awareness of conscious thought...

But she was trying. She was giving it up so it could happen without her. So it would happen no matter what, whether she lived to see it or not.

It was a shinobi's choice.

One Mai respected.

Looking down at the twins, she reached one hesitant hand down to touch them, close enough together for her fingers to stretch across both their tiny chests and stomachs.

"'If you can look into the seeds of time,'" she whispered softly, "'And say which grain will grow, and which will not, Speak.'"

...

~ Mai just huddled against the wall they'd shoved her into, ignoring the growing pain in the back of her head. Fumiko would give her an ice pack or something for it later, and make Maple milk. Yeah, she thought, maple milk, just like syrup... ~

...

Mai found herself sometime later at the door of her own old home. She studied the door, the wornness of it from too many sandstorms to possibly count.

There was nothing to be done about the fact that Cat would probably have already woken up everyone on the floor crying, unused to being left in that place rather than their home, unused to being banned from her clothes anyway. They would have woken up soon, anyway, given the first dawning touches of orange and dark red light.

Silently, she broke the lock with a sharp twist. It didn't matter. Her dad could fix it, and if he couldn't, well, she didn't really care. Her mother was living at the Tower soon anyway, so it wouldn't affect her.

The living room was as quiet and dark as the streets, but with less sand dancing about. There were dust motes in the air she could feel when she breathed. Her mother would sleep for maybe another hour or so before she had to leave.

Not as much to do here as in the Tower, but still.

Mai had grown up trapped between these walls. Whether she had enjoyed it or not didn't matter. And she had liked this house, liked the familiarity and small cozyness of it. Just not necessarily the people- person- inside it.

Quicker than she'd intended she was in her room, the one with the weapons and the punching bag spares and which still had a few of her ANBU supplies hidden under the floorboards. Everything she needed from that- the armguards, the pouches, the ninja tools- those were at her other home, her new home, her home.

The flowers were gone, already moved to her apartment, as well as most of everything else. It was barren here.

But the temperature was the same at night as it always had. There were the cracks in the wall, the familiar popcorn patterns, the holes she'd sort of plastered over inadequately when she punched through the walls or threw weapons into them.

She ran her fingers over the roughness of the wall, wondered if it would still be standing when she got back.

Her heart was pounding despite her silence, blood singing through her veins. This was her home. If not this room then this village, if not even that then this world was her home, her shinobi nindo was her home, whether she had one truly or not.

Whoever the hell you are, whatever the hell you are, she thought silently at her nightmares, at the big man from history textbooks, the one that fought wars, the black void with no face. You better watch out. I'm coming.

...

~ "Hey, we're talking to you." ~

...

Zippers, Fumiko realized, were really, really loud.

The sound rang through the tiny closet until the zipper reached the end at the top of her flak jacket, tight against her stomach and chest, slightly odd against the white tshirt underneath it and the fishnet underneath that, pressing against her skin.

Everything was on except her glove and her headband, which was waiting along with her necklace pouch on her dresser.

Fumiko stepped out of the closet to switch with Gaara, only realizing when she stepped out that the sound of running water was still on in the bathroom. He wasn't ready for the closet yet. How odd, she thought. That hadn't happened in a while. Maybe shinobi attire had changed their schedule a little.

She stepped into the bathroom, already pulling the hair tie from her wrist and reaching to pull back her long, long straight hair, which even in the ponytail would still reach her waist. When had it gotten so long? It hadn't even crossed her mind to do anything but trim her own bangs every now and again.

Gaara, on instinct, glanced up at her in the mirror. In the reflective glass Fumiko saw the way his head snapped back down.

She'd shown him the uniform the day she'd bought it, and his reaction had been about the same.

"Hurry, Gaara," she said. "We'll be late to meet my mom and set her up."

"I know."

"Long trip ahead of us," Fumiko mused as she reached for her toothbrush and squirted toothpaste on the bristles. "Hope there's no weird weather or anything."

"Yes," he agreed, now looking up at her normally as he put down his comb, hair still sticking in the way it wanted to in typical Gaara fashion. "We must be there on time to address the Allied Forces."

He was quiet after that, sweeping off to lope into the closet and change into his shinobi clothes. It didn't take long to finish brushing her teeth, and she didn't bother to wash her face- they were about to go on a trip through the desert and a couple of other ecosystems, she would get dirty soon anyway and so would everyone around her.

The closet door was still half closed when she stepped out, so she made her way to the vanity dresser and glanced one more time at her reflection before reaching for her finished, dry, functioning, full glove sealed with twelve bursts of water in the Suiton named seal, three extra staffs, an extra prosthetic, and two blank spaces.

There really wasn't anything else to seal into her Bo, Wood seal. All the weapons she would need- use- were her seals, and her bo staffs, perhaps the occasional shuriken if it turned close-range and she didn't have time to Unseal a new one. The plus of leaving the blanks was the if something was made of wood, she would only have to touch it to the right circle and make a seal to Seal it away.

Not that many people were using wooden weapons, and it had a size limit, but still.

She slid it on, stretching her fingers out and tugging the hem toward her elbow. She clenched and unclenched the fist, smiled, and then put on her necklace, tucking the pouch away underneath her flak vest.

After a second's hesitation, she nodded, to what, she wasn't sure; and picked up her hitai-ate branded with shinobi. The Allies. One side of an entire war, and she was a part of it...

She tied it on, and it pushed her bangs to either side until they were nearly invisible save for a few tufts that pushed out of the top corners. Kind of like Tenten's bangs, she mused.

She looked like a ninja. Like a fighter.

"Mew."

Fumiko jumped, shattering the moment of contemplation of her own brown eyes in the mirror, gaze whipping to the door. To her surprise, Cat, Mai's little grey stray, was sitting in the doorway expectantly, having nosed it open the rest of the way from where it'd sat cracked open.

"How did you get here?" she exclaimed.

"Who?" Came Gaara's voice from the closet, suspicious.

She laughed. "Cat!"

The closet door opened, and Gaara stepped out. He blinked at the animal, then smiled slightly. "You told Mai that your mother was going to stay here and watch Hajime and Hiroki, correct?"

"Yeah. Speaking of which, I need to check on them one more... but what's that have to do with Cat?"

"Mai probably left him here for Mrs. Mitsuwa to take care of," he said, tugging at the last strap of the flak under his normal protection once more. "While she's gone fighting."

"Ohh."

...

~ Mai flinched again, then swallowed slightly, looking down at the sand. "Gaara isn't bad," she muttered. ~

...

"Thank you so much for staying here, mom." Fumiko said for probably the millionth time, holding Hajime tight to her chest. "You have no idea how much this means to us."

"Of course," she said with a pleasant smile. "With all the shinobi gone, I won't be needed at the hospital nearly as much. It's no problem."

"If you need anything, let Tsubaki or Sunako know," Gaara added. He was holding Hiroki, and the baby was lying on his stomach on Gaara's arm, stabilized with Gaara's other hand, huge in comparison to the child. Hiroki seemed perfectly happy, making little cooing sounds. "And don't let any of the Elders try and instruct you."

"I'll be fine," Hanako said with a laugh. "My goodness. You're the ones going to war."

Gaara's lips pursed. Fumiko caught his sideways glance, knowing. She tried to plead with her eyes, holding Hajime even closer, head supported on her elbow crook. But Gaara spoke again anyway.

"We need to leave now, Fumiko," he said quietly, and she sighed.

"Too soon," she murmured.

"Honey," her mother said, and put down her suitcase, the one lone bag she'd carried up that she didn't let the servants handle for her. I'm a grandma, not useless. And she took three steps and put a hand on Fumiko's cheek, unexpected. "Please, be careful."

"I will, mom."

"And you too, mister. I don't want to hear anything about martyrs and sacrifice, got it?"

Gaara smiled faintly. "Of course, ma'am."

"You're going to be so strong," her mother mused quietly, almost under her breath. "You shouldn't be so strong yet."

Fumiko blinked fast. No, she wasn't strong. She never had been strong. Gaara was strong. Mai was strong. Fumiko herself had only ever been protected. But she was going to try and be strong, going to try and face her own battles.

After all, she would have neither her sister nor her best friend by her side. If she wasn't strong...

She looked down at Hajime's face, and he kind of almost startled and blinked up at the attention, brown eyes sparkling, and then he smiled, toothless and messy. Her grip loosened slightly rather than tightening, thrumming heart going still.

"Bye, lovey," she said so quietly, it might have been a thought. "I'll see you soon, baby."

She was ready.

For just this once, Fumiko was going to be strong.

...

~ "What was that? I couldn't hear you." ~

...

'The March' had been aptly named.

At first, the movement had been loud and excited and vibrating with energy, but as the days wore on, it died to the same kind of shinobi acceptance as any other mission assignment. Fumiko herself hadn't realized how many shinobi there were- well she had, but only numbers.

She had never seen every able-bodied ninja in Sunagakure together in one place. They spanned the entirety of Suna's wall length, up and down and all around. It made her feel huge and microscopic at the same time- she was a part of something bigger. A part of something important.

But she was a part so small that if she were to fall from heat exhaustion, or lose her nerve at the last moment and head back home, it would make absolutely no difference.

The travel wasn't unpleasant. There had been a storm behind them as they left, not raining yet, but the clouds had undulated miles about Sunagakure's borders; it hadn't effected them and aside from that, the weather was nothing less than ironically perfect.

They would skirt Konoha entirely to avoid common pathways, an almost feeble attempt to keep from being predictable. If the enemy chose, they could easily find this enormous group of shinobi all walking, running, on trees at the borders now at the Land of Fire and on the ground. They streamed like ants.

Passing through the Land of Fire, using the famous Valley of the End as a reference point, they would travel through Sound, infamous but as well a part of this organization, enter the unnamed territory of the smaller shinobi villages, Hot Water and Frost, both without Kage, and finally take one last trek through the Land of Lightning to get to Kumogakure.

Along the way, shinobi would probably break away, teams taking their own paths or stopping in certain places to see people or pick something up, ninja from different villages rendezvousing to travel together. But at the same time, shinobi from other villages would cross their paths, from Stone and Ame and any other stragglers.

At night they made big camps, tents and underground Doton hideouts and canopy beds all spiraling in a circle from the epicenter, usually occupied by herself, the Sand Siblings, and Team Otokaze, sensei included. Baki as well moved fluidly in and out, monitoring progress.

Finally out of the desert, they were free to travel by day.

Fumiko tugged absently at her medical pouch, eyes steadfastly at the ground despite Gaara's ever-steady presence at her side, looking cautiously for roots and rocks and other offending known abiotic obstacles.

She was singing-slash-humming the lyrics of a song she'd learned on the boat ride to the Land of Iron, half-remembered. The Fish of The Sea. "Come all you young sailormen, listen to me, I'll sing you a song of the fish in the sea, and it's... Windy weather boys, stormy weather, boys, When the wind blows we're all together, boys. Hm-hm..."

It was helping Gaara, she had realized back when she first started, and whoever happened to walk by slowed and stopped to listen to the snappy, happy tunes, so she was running through what she knew, trying to stay upbeat. They were traveling! It was exciting!

She had honestly expected to be questioned, prodded, poked, teased, condescended upon, much in the way she was whenever she left the Tower. But Fumiko had forgotten that these were ninja, and not civilians, and that so many of them were doing the same thing she was- leaving newborns, toddlers, preteens, siblings, spouses, family.

It was nice knowing that everyone here understood that much. She wondered how many were shinobi-hearted civilians who had heard about, taken and passed Gaara's genin and immediate Chuunin exams. Some, she knew, had tested into Genin and remained behind in the village to help look after it, since most Genin had managed to claw themselves into Chuunin positions and join the war effort.

An odd one out, Mai would say. The only true pretender of the bunch.

She was really the only civilian.

Fumiko reached out without looking, still singing her tuneless sailor's song, and took Gaara's hand. After a moment of surprise and the lightning gaze of his confusion at the side of her face, he held hers back, nearly covering her entire hand with his fingers.

"And it's... Windy weather boys, stormy weather, boys, When the wind blows we're all together, boys, Blow ye winds westerly, blow ye winds, blow, Jolly sou'wester, boys, steady she goes."

...

~ "I said Gaara's not bad!" ~

...

It took almost five days at their speed to pass all the way through Konoha. Tons of people had already gone ahead of them at a treewalker's fast shunshin pace, and some even fell behind, slower. Nearly two thirds of the March's original count had dissipated.

It was night now. Fumiko knew she was the only exhausted one of the group, walking nonstop save for four or five hour long breaks at night. In an attempt to be useful, she made their campfires and cooked whatever Mai, Eishi and Shiragiku managed to scrounge, or, if that failed, whatever supplies they already had.

Now the fire danced in the darkness, pleasantly crackling, spitting embers every now and again.

The Land of Sound was beautiful, with primary greens and bright yellows and browns and earth colors that looked like they exuded light. There was greenery and small mountain ridges, other cok formation, gorgeous lakes that interlaced each other. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she felt herself drawn to her sketchbook, which she had sealed away and brought along.

As she drew, colored pencils scratching across paper, Mai poked at the fire with a big long stick she'd found while hunting for rabbits and small animals. They had four, and Temari, Baki, Matsuri and her team were huddled around it. Nearby that, a few yards away from both Temari's and her own fires, Kankuro and Gaara sat conversing quietly.

Eishi, Shiragiku, and Otokaze still hadn't returned, and so to be safe Fumiko had set up a pot over the flames with a tripod of thick, strong sticks she'd dipped in lake water to be safe.

There wasn't any gravy, so she'd boiled lake water to sterilize it before putting in the cleaned meat Mai had managed to get. When Shiragiku came, he would have plants to put in, maybe wild carrots or potatoes or even flavoring things like berries and edible leaves and roots, sweet flowerheads. Something to make the water taste like broth.

"What are you drawing?" Mai asked. It wasn't sudden; there had been a sort of on-and-off conversation as her sister came in and out of reality, sometimes staring into the fire and sometimes not. And anyway, it wasn't quiet enough to make the question loud- they were surrounded by similar camps, shinobi still setting up tents, hauling water, yelling at each other across sleeping spaces.

"The mountain lakes we saw."

"Ah." Her sharp gaze flicked to where Gaara and Kankuro sat tending the other fire. "Hm. This is more boring than I thought it'd be."

"What'd you think it would be like?" Fumiko put down her pencil and set her book against her lap. She'd taken off her prosthetic so she could kneel properly on her knees without hurting herself on the dull metal hook.

"For one, I figured they'd stay pumped up a little longer."

"They're probably just tired, Mai."

Mai reached up thoughtfully and tugged once on her earring. As her hand dropped back down to her lap, Fumiko caught the shine of senbon in the flames, flickering expertly between her knuckles like a magician's coin. "No," she said. "Not tired. They're scared. Now the adrenaline's worn off."

"Can you blame them?"

"Eh, not really." Mai grinned, a wry quirking of her lips. "But the problem is it's catching like sick. One gets scared, then the team, then the people around that team."

"It'll get better when we get to Cloud," Fumiko promised, and put down her book entirely to scoot forward and check on the food without burning herself. "The other Kage and Gaara will inspire them again."

"Until we fight, and people start to die."

She paused, staring at the slowly popping bubbles in the pot.

"Mai..."

"That's what's going to happen. It just won't be us."

The statement was so contradictory yet so firm that Fumiko really wasn't sure whether to think her sister sounded old or really, really young. "No, not us."

Mai's eyes slid skyward. The night sky was just as pretty as the scenery by daylight, nearly as many stars as at Suna despite the clouds that showed up during the day. The moon was full.

"You're such a liar," she accused, and laughed.

...

~ "Well, my dad says he's an evil monster. So does everyone else." The boy- Kuranosuke?- scoffed and crossed his arm with a mean, sly little grin. "And I think the grown ups know a little more than you do, dead last." ~

...

"I wonder what they're talking about," Kankuro commented lightly, nodding at the two Mitsuwa girls around the fire. Mai was laughing, and Fumiko, after a moment of startled bewilderment, joined in. Mai shoved lightly at her older sister's shoulder. If Gaara had wanted to, he could've channeled chakra in his ears and listened in, but there was no need.

He looked back at Kankuro, who sat with crossed legs in front of the fire, holding out his hands. From here, Gaara could smell cooking meat, although it was impossible to tell whether it was coming from the pot Fumiko watched over that wafted steam or one of the hundreds of other cook fires around them. The air was warm, night pleasant.

"You can never tell," Gaara agreed.

"Hey, bro, she's doing pretty good for, you know..." He gestured uselessly with both hands before shrugging. "This whole thing. I heard her singing those stupid songs that sailor taught her earlier."

Gaara shook his head. "I can't tell if she's truly happy," he mused, "Or if she's putting up a front."

"You know her best."

"Fumiko," he said, "Is a very good liar."

"What?" Kankuro laughed. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"She isn't vapid," Gaara stated by way of explanation. "There's more than you notice at a first glance. Nor is she oblivious. Sometimes, every thought in her head is like air, pretty and childlike..." He sighed. "And sometimes they aren't, and she acts the same either way."

"Did you just call your girlfriend an airhead?" his brother said disbelievingly with a snort. "Jeez."

"Either she's fine," he continued, completely ignoring his older brother's outburst. "And she really just likes the scenery, or she happened to notice that being fine tends to make others around her feel fine, too."

"You lost me." Kankuro finally pulled away from the heat, putting both hands on the ground on either side of him. "Isn't she always the one saying not to act like you're feeling something you aren't?"

Gaara let his eyes flick from the other fire, where they'd drifted, back to his brother's eyes. Kankuro straightened slightly, probably subconsciously. "Making people happy makes her happy," he said quietly. "That's her way. So in her mind she might not be faking anything."

"Or you're totally overanalyzing this and she's fine."

Gaara sighed. "Or that, perhaps."

There was another moment of silence, filled with the mixed sounds of cicadas and people and the fire. Kankuro rolled one of his shoulders, then reached into his pack, presumably for a ration bar or some other snack he'd squirreled away.

"I don't know, Gaara. Even if she's not okay, she will be." He winced slightly, eyes going to the other fire, where Mai had laid back on the ground, Fumiko back to her sketchbook. Gaara could make out the forms of Eishi and Shiragiku making their way back through the spread out crowd of people. "Eventually."

Gaara said nothing.

...

~ More laughter. "I'm not dead-last!" Mai insisted. "I'm not!" ~

...

Lightning was a strange, strange Land.

Sometimes it was muggy and hot from pending thunderstorms they tried to dodge but sometimes got caught in, and others it was freezing cold, after the rain and when the mists and fogs started to settle in.

It was one of those such nights that Fumiko had a nightmare, jolted awake with a scream she instantly tried to cut off by biting her tongue and nearly falling out of her sleeping bag. Gaara, beside her in his, immedietly sat up. He never zipped his bag, no shinobi ever did...

There were a few murmurs of general alarm, but here and there someone who knew her- Temari, Kankuro, Mai, Baki, Matsuri, some of the hired help that had worked to Tower as Genin and graduated to Chuunin during Gaara's massive test- could be heard explaining that she had nightmares frequently, and eventually everything died back down and quiet reigned once more, people if not managing to fall back asleep then respecting their Kazekage's privacy as e held her to his chest and muttered soundless things into her hair.

Eventually, cicadas drowned out her panicky tears and she'd wiped all the blood from her mouth. Rather than going back to her sleeping bag, she curled up in Gaara's, and despite his natural instincts, she noticed he zipped it after her. But it was Gaara.

He didn't need to move to fight.

And it was that thought that comforted her, in fits and starts, back into sleep.

...

~ "Dobe! Dobe!" ~

...

When they finally made it to Kumo, they were quickly escorted away from the general crowds of mingling shinobi to the Kumogakure Kage Tower by a squad of border patrol nin. It was huge, and more modern-looking than Suna's, with walls and walls and walls of massive windows falling like a reverse set of plastic stacking rings, with the smallest sphere on the bottom and the biggest on the top.

It looked like the entire impossible setup was held up by multiple huge rocks that circled a good half of it, the smallest rising all the way to the second and third floors, the biggest hugging the side all the way to the bottom of the fifth floor out of what seemed like five or six at a glance.

The whole structure seemed kind of precarious, but Fumiko knew that under attack, it would hold. Every Kage Tower had to hold.

Mai had to stay in an actual hotel- along with every other shinobi pouring in through the gates of Kumo, by the hundreds and thousands. Unlike herself- Fumiko got to stay with Gaara as the whatever she was of the Kazekage. The floor she was staying on would be all kinds of guarded and would house literally four of the Five Kage and their guards.

Her sister grumbled but eventually left with a shifty, anticipating kind of grin. Fumiko watched her go, watched her vanish into the crowds and crowds. She knew she could handle herself, definitely- woe be the shinobi who tried to mug or attack her younger sister.

But still...

"Come on, miss," one of the escorts said to her kindly but warily, and she knew it had something to do with his eyes on Gaara. Despite the Alliance, tensions between villages were high. Gaara had warned her to be careful of offending nervous looking or otherwise powerful political figures like Kage, their guards, anyone who looked to be an advisor.

Nobody wanted a fight to break out.

Fumiko thought she saw the flash of people she knew- Shino, with his big Aburame jacket; and Hinata, standing at the back of the crowd, twiddling her fingers, hands tucked deep in her sleeves- But they were gone, lost in the throngs of people and noise and pushy officials trying to get her inside.

She trailed close after Gaara, trying to keep a hand on his sleeve or back or gourd or something else otherwise attached to him.

Unlike Sunagakure's Tower, where the staircases spiraled around against the walls, there was one big set of steep stairs that went straight up, twisting in square turns to keep it a straight line up, where it disappeared into circular floors held up by random metal and glass pillars that shined with the light through the windows like her prism.

They went up and up and up, all the way to the second to highest floor. By the time they reached it, she'd tripped twice, and her legs were a little sore, but Gaara helped her up, ignoring the looks of the escorts and of Ohnoki and his guards, who were a floor beneath them on their way up.

At the guest floor, the Sand Siblings pulled to the side, and since she didn't really know where she was going anyway she stepped off with them, still holding Gaara's sleeve. One or two minutes later, the Tsuchikage finally floated up to the top, followed quickly by his guards. He spared Gaara a sideways glance and then continued on his way, led by the escort that quickly separated from the wall.

"Why did we wait?" she whispered, not sure if Ohnoki could hear or not.

"Never let a ninja at your back if you can help it," Temari murmured. "The Tsuchikage is definitely overconfident."

...

~ "It's not true- gah!" Her eyes burned suddenly, and really she hadn't even had time to register the sand as it flew up, yellow-pale and then blind blind blind. "Ah! Ah!" ~

...

It was easy to get lost in the throngs. Also easy to get punched in the face.

Nobody here was happy being crammed with other foreign nin. Mai could practically see the thick black tension in the air, and could hear it in the random fights that broke out like bar brawls in the streets of Kumo, one word leading to a sentence leading to a threat leading to a fist.

Or a jutsu.

Either way, she maneuvered fairly well, occasionally stopping to break up two blustering idiots in her way. Honestly, it was stupid to be getting so angry for no reason. You're a stranger from Iwa! That's across the Lands from me, so I hate you!

Ugh. In her opinion, a stranger should be a stranger, not an automatic enemy. She didn't have to be nice to them, but she definitely wasn't out to bash them all through stone walls.

As she weaved through the streets, holding the transcript for the hotel she was supposed to be staying at in one hand and a twisted map of Kumo in the other, squinting through the fogs, a few voices louder than the rest caught her ear.

"... pansy Leaf."

"Aw, yeah?" another voice growled. "Least I don't have to sharpen my teeth. What is that shit, a nail file job?"

"You brat!"

The voices sounded vaguely familiar, but it wasn't until a big loud woof sounded off like a cave-in that she paused. Ignoring the lady with about as much language control as herself who'd run into her back, Mai glanced in the direction the noise was coming from. She didn't want to flare her chakra here, she'd only confuse herself.

Her eyes caught another, blacker pair, not yet noticing hers, and she grinned a startled kind of grin.

Kiba was arguing nonchalantly with what looked like a Kiri random probably twice his age. At his side was- shit, was that Akamaru?- a huge white dog bigger than her in weight and, if the big mutt stood on his hind legs, probably height. He wore a standard-looking Konoha Chuunin flak jacket with neck guards and the same Shinobi hitai-ate as her own, which she'd gotten from Gaara.

Mai strode over, but it took a moment before Kiba seemed to pause, eyes drawing away from the Kirigakure nin. His nose lifted, and she realized he was scenting.

In this crowd, had he recognized her smell, something he hadn't been exposed to for almost three years?

He really was a mutt.

Kiba's nose dipped, eyes flared in slight surprise, and caught her figure pushing towards them where they stood at the edge of the street, leaned up against a building wall. He leaned slightly away from the now steaming ninja he'd been antagonizing and grinned, sharper than her own with physical animalistic canines.

"Yo!"

"Inuzuka!" she greeted, raising a hand.

"Been a while," he remarked as she stepped up on the sidewalk.

"Way too long, mutt. You're always on missions. You even missed Fumiko's baby shower, you bastard."

"Heh."

"Oh, perfect." The Kiri sneered. "And where are you from, Grass?"

"Grass ninja are cowards. I actually take some offense at that." Mai let her eyes slide over to his figure in a sideways glance. Tall, dark hair. Standard Kirigakure flak with minimal underarm and neck guard, sporting big shoulder protection pads, and a single katanna. Not much of a threat, probably. "So who's this guy?"

"Dunno." Kiba shrugged. "He just kinda showed up and started yelling at us."

"Fantastic. You know we're all on the same side, right?"

"The Mizukage could certainly have taken care of this on her own."

"Of course," she said faux-seriously, nodding her head and rocking back on her heels, tucking her thumbs into her sheath belts. "Gaara couldn't do it, so it makes sense the Mizukage could handle it all on her own. Got-cha."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you haven't changed one bit," Kiba said dryly, then laughed.

"You haven't either," Mai agreed. "But your dog damn well has."

...

~ The crying wasn't her fault. She never ever cried unless something hurt really bad, like right now, with sand in her eyes, and she scrubbed at her face furiously with her hands and she could just feel more of it slapping against her face as whoever it was she-couldn't-tell kept kicking it up but that just made it feel worse. ~

...

The rooms they were settled into were bland- a bed along the far right corner next to a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and stand up shower (which would be a problem later but wasn't right that second) and across the room, a window and double dressers.

Pretty similar to the Sunagakure guest rooms, she realized. Only at least these walls were white, rather than the sandy brown-yellow of any standard, unpainted lodge in her own home village.

Her and Gaara in one, Temari and Kankuro in another, side by side. The exact same format as the other Kage and their guards. The only difference was that the ones who showed up first- namely everyone but them and the Tsuchikage- were closer to the square spiral staircase with it's massive round opening like a shopping center in Konoha.

The doors locked from the inside only. It didn't look like there would be any nice maintenance people coming by to clean up, which was fine.

Tomorrow, Fumiko knew, everyone would gather into their respective segments. They would get to know their Division counterparts, figure out their leaders if they hadn't already, get basic information on the war itself and the plans the Five Kage, with Shikamaru and his father Shikaku's help, had managed to come up with based on intel gathered on the fields.

The war itself was in a few days. They would leave on Thursday.

Three days.

It was disconnect; only a mild, distantly bubbling anxiety surfacing at the thought.

She set her single bag down beside the bed, not bothering to unpack. Most of it was in Seals anyway, neatly folded away and categorized. Her clothes, extra travel rations, toiletries, pencils, extra sealing ink, paper and brushes, ninja tools.

The only thing not in her bag was her sketchbook, which she dropped on the comforter before stretching and turning back to face Gaara, who carefully closed- locked, she noticed- the door behind them almost unthinkingly. "We finally get to sit!"

"It was a long journey," Gaara said tiredly, smiling. "You should rest before tomorrow."

She smiled and said, "Naptime?"

...

~ "Get away from her." ~

...

Fumiko was cooking in the kitchen the first time she met Terumi Mei, S-rank Fifth Mizukage of the Village hidden in the Mist, known for her usually unexpected Lava and Boil releases.

Casting the images of Bingo book pages aside, Fumiko looked up from her Shigureni meat on the stove.

"Ohayo!" she chirped. Gaara, at the table, looked up but made no other movements than to watch. This particular Kage, it seemed, rather than the others she'd met aside from Tsunade, didn't put Gaara immediately on guard.

"Hello, she said politely. "And you are...?"

"Mitsuwa Fumiko," she replied with a tipping smile, looking back down to stir with her chopsticks, swirling meat around and around the big pan. "Shigureni?"

...

~ The laughter and the dobe, dobe, dobe chants faded into sharp screams as the sand kicked up again around but not against her and she could hear them as they ran off, footsteps pounding, voices shrill. ~

...

The only quiet place in Cloud at that moment, when everyone was gathering into one space, one place, was the borders on the other side of the village and this room, underneath the giant stone stage-esque structure that the Division Commanders would address their individual sects on.

Darui from Kumo. Kitsuchi from Iwa. Kakashi from Konoha. Gaara. Mifune from the Land of Iron. And Gaara presiding over them all, with Shikamaru as his proxy. Everyone but Shikamaru was down here, ready, for the most part, to face the eighty thousand strong shinobi force.

Fumiko adjusted Gaara's vest, which he wore over top a traditional Sunagakure chuunin-style flak. Rather than his long cloak, Gaara wore similarly maroon pants with a long sleeves shirt. Bandages tightened the loose hems near his ankles, and his gourd sash was tucked into his vests. Practically his old fighting clothes, except for melee combat.

"Do you remember all your points?"

"Yes."

"The plans, the numbers, the known enemy, everything?"

"Yes, Fumiko."

"Good." She tugged on it one more time and then smiled up at him, tucking her fingers behind the middle buckle. "You'll do great, Gaara. They'll see- you're an awesome Regiment Commander."

"Thank you," he muttered, only smiling slightly, since really aside from one other speaking in quiet tones to an assistant they were the only ones talking. Embarrassed again.

Soft footsteps. Gaara's eyes slid, but Fumiko knew that like herself he had already identified the blue, electric, fireplace-crackling chakra that was Hatake Kakashi. "Hey," he said. "Up in ten."

Gaara nodded. "Right."

"Good luck, Kakashi, too," she said with another smile, then dropped down her hands.

Kakashi blinked, gave her a sideways glance. And then his one visible eye crinkled slightly in a smile she couldn't see behind his dark black mask, touching the fabric to the cloth of his Shinobi hitai-ate. "Thank you, Fumiko-chan."

"Fumiko!" There was the almost-loud noise of a door banging open in the quiet. "Time to hit our Divisions! Oh, hey, Gaara," Mai said as she came around the hallway corner. "Kakashi. Everyone else."

Someone had probably taken offense at that, but before anyone could say anything about it, Mai jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

"Hai." Fumiko nodded once before turning to look back at Gaara, who tilted his head slightly. "Love you."

Self-conscious but unwilling to leave her without, he murmured, "You too."

Tiptoes. "Kiss."

He complied, and then she hugged him once before stepping back next to Mai, who had wandered the rest of the way across the floor, and her sister put a hand on her shoulder to steer her away. Nothing sounded but the clak, clak of her prosthetic.

"That was great," Mai said, voice normal but completely uncaring that everyone could still hear them as they rounded the corner. "The looks on all their faces..."

She pushed open the door. Fumiko squinted in the sunlight and followed her out, but paused in the doorway. Humming slightly, she leaned slightly back into the hall and called, "Good luck, again!" before stepping fully out and letting Mai close the door behind her.

Immediately there was noise, since they had come out almost directly in front of the Allied Forces. Mai nodded, then turned slightly to look at her critically.

"Gotta go," she said. "Meet up later?"

"Yeah." Fumiko smiled. "Yep, definitely. I'm making dinner for the Kage tonight, I'll see if I can bring you some."

"Sounds like a plan." The kunoichi nodded again; hesitated before taking a step. "That really was a good thing you did back there," she said seriously. "Gaara's the Regimental Commander. For a shinobi like him to show affection at a time like this... well, they know who to watch out for."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Although they might anyway after dinner." Mai grinned again, serious mood dissipating in place of an excitement-fueled amusement. "Now let's go."

...

~ She continued to sniffle even as she felt another presence crouch in front of her, just kept wiping at her eyes and the tears and the sand until he grabbed her wrists and held them still, pulled them away from her face. Gaara was blurry. ~

...

It wasn't long before she'd managed to make her way into the mass of shinobi that was the Second division and pick out familiar faces: Hinata and Neji. There was another woman there who seemed friendly enough and was speaking with her Hyuga friends with red hair named Karui.

Only a few minutes after getting settled with her friends, the Commanders- Gaara included- came up on the... stage? Random building outpiece? Anyway they came outside and out of the little room, and lined up in front of their respective Divisions.

"I... I'm starting to feel really nervous," Hinata admitted.

Karui scoffed. "In war you've always gotta stay calm and composed."

"Aw, hold on a minute," said a woman irritably, putting a hand to the back of her head, short chopped black hair rustling between her fingers. "My dad's gonna be our captain?"

"Don't worry, Hinata," Fumiko said loudly over the buzz of other voices. "Everything will be fine."

"Do not drop your guard," Neji warned. "Confidence, not cockiness."

Fumiko laughed. "Neji, you were only overconfident when I met you!"

Neji flushed slightly in indignation, and Karui and Hinata started to laugh as well.

Eventually everyone calmed down enough- herself included- to realize that the other commanders had left, filtered off to the sides, to leave Gaara at the head and on his own. Things quieted, save for the few already broken out fights still winding up.

"Are you sure that someone so young is fit to be the commander in chief?" one man in front of her said with a smirk to the one beside him.

"Lord Gaara is not your average young man!" a clansman barked, saving Fumiko from having to respond. "And how dare you make such ignorant assumptions!"

The other man tensed. "And how the hell would I know about it?" he demanded. "We've barely been on the same side here for a minute, you numbskull!"

"Right back at'cha! We were enemies for a long time, and I don't trust you!" He growled. "You better watch what you say."

"Um," Fumiko said, tapping the angry one's shoulder with one finger. "Gaara wants to speak."

Both men growled, but turned away from each other crossing their arms. Fumiko did the same, only with a slight smile on her face as she tilted her head up to squint at Gaara's tiny figure way up at the top of that stone slab.

"It seems like nobody here is ready to trust each other yet," Hinata commented softly.

"I know, but it can't be helped," Neji sighed. "After being on opposite sides for so many years, you can't expecting them all to bond in only a day or two... Especially not Suna and Iwa."

"Not yet," Fumiko agreed. "But soon."

"How do you figure that?" the black-haired girl asked.

"Gaara's been watching," she said, rocking slightly on and off her tiptoes, careful not to unbalance her prosthetic. "He sees what's happening. And Gaara knows better than anyone how important it is that we all work together and trust each other.

"And what's he supposed to do about it?"

"Dunno yet," she admitted. "But wait. Soon."

"That's it- you wanna fight?!"

"Yeah, you bet I do!"

And all of a sudden a fight had broken out in front of them as the quietly restarted argument exploded into conflict. Fumiko stepped back slightly, aided by Hinata. All around it was happening, ranks scattering as fist and jutsu fights broke out everywhere. A few other ninja came in from around to break up the fight just in front of them, but until Gaara spoke, nothing would change.

The two ninja struggled out of the other shinobi's grips and went back at it, but it was exactly at that moment, as they met in the middle- along with every other fight in every other rank simultaneously- a curl of sand leapt up, twisted, and slammed the two apart, bursting into a cloud and then drifting on in the breeze.

From here, Fumiko couldn't pick it up, but she smiled anyway at the thought of Gaara's raised hand.

"See?" she said with a grin. "Soon."

It was in this shocked almost-silence that Gaara began to speak.

"In the name of gain and profit for one's Nation and village, shinobi have hated and hurt each other for many years; from the First to the Third Great Ninja War, and the conflicts in between. All of that hatred cried out for power, thus I was born." There was a pause, a pause during which she knew Gaara was collecting his thoughts: Closed eyes, she imagined, chin tilted down just so.

"In the past, I was Hatred, Power, and a Jinchuuriki." The inflections in his voice rose, could now be heard by everyone. He had to have been using chakra to amplify his vocal cords... "I hated this world and it's people, and thought about destroying both. That's exactly what the Akatsuki is trying to do now."

"Yeah, Gaara," Fumiko murmured. "Tell them about Uzumaki Naruto."

Because Uzumaki Naruto inspired everyone.

Gaara's voice was loud, sudden, and fierce after the silence, startling a couple people into flinches. "But then, a single shinobi from the Hidden Leaf village stopped me! ... He cried for me."

"How'd you know he would say that?" Karui muttered. "Creepy."

"I was his enemy, and still he cried for me! And he called me his friend, even though we had battled! He helped save me... we were on different sides, but we were both Jinchuuriki. Between those who have experienced the same pain, there can be no hate! There are no enemies here now! Brecause each one of us shares the pain of having been hurt by the Akatsuki! ..."

Gaara went suddenly silent. it was his kind of contemplation'; probably he was either looking off to the side as he thought or sweeping his eyes over the crowds of ninja. Fumiko wondered if he could pick her out with his shinobi eyes, if he already had before he'd even began his speech.

"... Suna... Iwa. Konoha... Kiri... and Kumo... are no more." His voice was just as contemplative as his silence, soft and unassuming. "Now there is only- Shinobi!"

Sharp inhales from every corner, shinobi rocking back on their heels and dropping their fighting fists and their tense anxiety. She could picture Mai as well, wherever she was in the First Division, either trying not to laugh or smirking resolutely, tiredly on depending on her mood.

"And if you still cannot forgive the Sand for what they've done, you can come back and face me after this war is over! ... The friend I spoke of, the one who helped me, is a target of our enemy! If he falls into their hands, our world's finished! I want to protect my friends- and I want to protect this entire world! I am too young and inexperienced to do that- so I ask you- all of you!- please, lend me your strength for this fight!"

She would admit without any shame that she squeaked- maybe screamed- a little bit when the ninja all around, almost all eighty thousand of them, started to cheer and scream and shout. After a moment she spent catching her bearings and blinking two or three times, Fumiko laughed, clapped her hands together, and joined in.

"Listen, I'm sorry about before..."

"Thank you, but I was in the wrong."

"Woo, Gaara!" she called, waving her arms, not caring if he could see or not. "Yeah! On to victory! Together!"

"All those who feel as I do-" Gaara cried over the noise and clamor of the Forces- "Follow me!"

"Yeeaahhhh!"

...

~ "Don't rub it," he murmured. "That will only make it hurt more." ~

...

"Excuse me- excuse me- excuse me!"

"Oh, sorry."

"No problem- thank you!"

Fumiko stepped alongside the road, sidestepping swarming shinobi heading back to their rooms for final preparations and one last night of sleep. Or not, probably... and they would leave at first light, all of them, the following morning.

One more night to think.

One more night to miss everything she had left behind, one more night to try and remember in case she never went back again...

One more night to feel protected.

It was late. Gaara hadn't found her; probably he'd been taken in by the crowd and rushed back to where he had been, or maybe back to the Tower. It had to have been intense, otherwise he would've found her- if not to make sure she didn't get murdered then to have as much time as possible before they departed the next morning.

Still, Fumiko had remained behind to catch up with her friends. Of course, during that time there had been a very disturbing visit by Satomi, who had shown up long enough to explain that she had signed onto the Surprise Attack Division as a rogue nin, and to try and plead her case again, but she hadn't gotten far before her other friends had recognized Fumiko's discomfort and rankled until the samurai left.

An Akatsuki against the Akatsuki. Ironic, Mai would say.

But that didn't matter now. Fumiko looked up at the sky, starless in the intense thick clouds that looked like they would storm- again with rain at their backs. She would really have to ask other foreign nin if the same thing had happened to them.

Didn't matter now at all, she mused. She had to get back to the Kumo Tower, make dinner for Gaara and everyone else. Find Mai. See everyone one last time.

Maybe she and Gaara could make one more blanket fort, pull apart the comforters and borrow the Sand Siblings' sheets and set everything up, only without the 'staying awake as long as possible' part. It wouldn't be their last. It couldn't be.

When they got home, she decided, they would do it again, and sleep with the twins and Mai and everyone all together in the rec room, make a massive one big enough to cover everyone.

...

~ "What are... what are you doing here?" she managed, trying to make her voice sound normal, but she killed it with another shaky snuffle. Gaara's eyes narrowed slightly, eyelids blackening shut like his shirt. ~

...

It was impossible to sleep.

There were literally six other strange shinobi sleeping in the same room.

Even after putting down protective seals and lying down with a kunai in her hand and without taking her belt sheaths off, she just couldn't do it.

So Mai had sat up and left, ignoring the mostly suspicious looks of the other ninja still awake, and heard the click of the automatic locking door. She wouldn't be getting back in, but that was absolutely fine by her.

She missed Cat a little, his soft warmth on her stomach or chest or side or wherever his Royal Highness decided he was obligated to sleep. She also missed her apartment, small but at least empty. Kami damn, whose idea had it been to stick a bunch of foreign shinobi together for sleeping quarters?

So instead of sleeping she walked. It was dark out, with absolutely zero star or moon visibility, so there was no real way of telling what time of day it was or when the sun would come up.

There was a lot of empty space in Kumo, a lot of rock formations surrounded by dusty dirt. Kumo wasn't a huge village, just a powerful one, she supposed. The few homes she came across as she walked were a few squat houses you might've found in Konoha save for the camouflage brown, and tons of story-high windows peeking out of rock structures that looked natural.

Despite that, all blending points were lost because from almost anywhere one could see the Kage Tower, big and huge and strangely built and made with glass and metal, just asking to be attacked.

Still, it would be harder getting in stealthily than it would be for, say, Suna's, or perhaps Konoha's, because you couldn't wall-walk the glass without being seen, there were no easily spotted extra entrances that she could see like aviary windows or mission report room open windows. The only way in for a foreigner without going through the front door and admissions would be to smash the glass, which was easy but an alarm system all on it's own.

Clever, in a backwards sort of way.

Mai sighed, then shrugged to herself. It was worth a shot. Gaara and Fumiko were possibly still up, and if they weren't then at least she could raid the fridge or something, if the Kage had left anything to spare. And if she got caught it wouldn't take long for Gaara to identify her and etcetra, etcetra.

"Well," she said to the muggish warm air. "Let's see if I can do this without getting murdered."

...

~ "I was going to get Fumiko from school," he said. "But I'll take you home first." ~

...

Blue, blue, blue.

That was the first thing she noticed. The color floated through her clothes and pushed her hair out in billowing waves above her face as she fell downwards, soundless, sinking farther and farther like she was floating through water.

The world turned white as she passed through something warm and sticky, and she coughed, once, twice, before she broke back into the plain blue sky, the fluffy wisps of cloud sticking to her arms as she continued to cough, barely managing to squint her eyes open to look at them all.

It was the first time in a while... at all, that she'd woken up from a bad dream without screaming.

Still, Gaara woke up. How he knew, she had no clue, but he did, and that was good enough for her.

Pulse flying, she let herself be held, picked up from the sticky sheets and just held. Gaara said nothing, wary of the empty walls full of wary shinobi. That was okay, though, because her mind was racing.

That hadn't even been a bad dream, not really. Falling into the sky? It really only could've been described as peaceful, not scary, not terrifying. Maybe that was why she hadn't screamed, but it didn't explain at all why she was crying, clutching the back of Gaara's sleepshirt.

"Clouds," she managed. Gaara nodded; she could feel it against the side of her head.

"It's fine," he said. "You're fine."

She wasn't fine, but she let herself think she was, all wrapped up in Gaara's cool warmth and scent and arms. "Okay," she whispered. "Yeah."

"You need to go back to sleep," he murmured. "You can't be tired tomorrow."

"I know..."

Gaara was quiet for another moment, not moving at all despite his words, unwilling to force her to leave before she felt safe again. The smell of this room was wrong, the feel of this room was wrong- it was too hot, too small, no sandy dusty scents around the bed. The colors were wrong. There was no fading traces of turpentine or shadows of her pictures.

Gaara seemed to pick up on her discomfort. Strange rooms were no problem, really, she could fall asleep anywhere... And Gaara would keep her safe just for tonight too, but...

"Come on," he said into her hair. "Let's make this more familiar."

"Wh-what?"

"I'll go get Kankuro's extra blankets if you find some supports." His voice was just as rough as ever, something off and unsettling to most outsiders, but here it just made it seem gentler, less loud, more calm.

Fumiko blinked. And then she smiled, and let her cheek fall against his shoulder, hands dropping down to the comforters. "Blanket fort," she said with a wet laugh. "On it."

Gaara held on for a moment more before letting go. He caught her face between his hands, gave a small smile in return to her own, and then slipped out of bed, heading towards the door and unlocking it. The door opened and closed, not even shafting any light from the darkened hallway.

About twenty minutes later, Fumiko had managed to scrounge up three abandoned, full size Bo staffs, couch like cushions from the closet probably meant to raise injured limbs and joints, a small, half-length broomstick, an empty box and a lot of extra blankets. Two spinny chairs and one solid, probably for the desk, and she'd pulled out all the empty dresser drawers and piled everything in the center of the room.

Gaara seemed impressed, anyway. She hadn't even left the room.

For his part, Gaara had brought back more cushions, more blankets, a few of Kankuro's extra empty full-size scrolls that when propped up fully rolled it was thicker than her waist and higher than her knees and a lot of clothespin-esque, slightly more powerful metal clamps his older brother usually used to hang puppet parts from strings across the ceilings.

She and Gaara had been making blanket forts together since they were seven years old. It was, as they'd quickly discovered, an art, and one they'd quickly mastered.

A half an hour later, they were almost done. The biggest comforter was propped up on the bed a few feet high, pulled across the box they'd filled with sand and secured with clamps and one of the scrolls lying on it's side.

They'd stuck two of the Bo staffs into the space between the mattress and the wooden bed frame on the side closest to the door- the same side they had pulled the blanket towards- and draped the blanket over them to slant like an elaborate lean-to, over the chairs, and when it ended there was another comforter stuck to it edge to edge with more clamps, draping until it fell over the entrance- a space between two stacks of cushions.

On either side, more comforters held to the ends with more clamps spread, held up by the remaining scrolls, folded blankets, stools and stacked dresser drawers until they had a big square of blanket-roofed space that went six feet past the foot of the bed and almost twice that over the side if not more.

Really, all there was left to do was spread all the extra blankets and comforters down on the floor inside so they wouldn't be sore and stiff the next morning, drag down and re plug in the lamps, and make sure the supports weren't interfering with the space inside, carefully pushing things aside...

Gaara had pulled out to get something, probably the last cushion or two, when she heard his muffled footsteps pause.

"Hey," a familiar voice asked. "You can't sleep either?"

"Mai," Gaara replied. "What are you doing here? How did you get in?"

"That's for me to know and the guards to freak out about in the morning." A laugh. "Anyway, you guys are much more fun than all those randoms in my 'hotel room'."

Fumiko crawled backwards back into the room- because there was no way the inside of this fort could still have been considered part of the rest of the room- and sat, twisting herself around with her hands.

And there Mai was, standing in the now open doorway in her thick, pale yellow, short sleeved button up fleece pajama top that went down to her thighs and loose black-grey sweatpants. It was rare to see her sister in her night clothes, up early and down late like she was, but it was even stranger now because she was still wearing her swords.

"Come on," she said, holding out an excited hand, smiling. "Come on, stay with us!"

"What?" Mai's expression turned into one of confusion. "I thought you guys would be sleeping-"

"We are," she said. "Just needed it to be a little more like home was. Is. Maybe that's why you can't sleep. Gaara's gonna cover the floor so it smells like sand, like home."

"You guys feel homesick," she mused, "And you make a blanket fort. Jeez, Gaara, if only those people could see you at home."

"We're done," Fumiko insisted. "Please?"

...

~ "Okay..." ~

...

An hour later- sixty minutes, three thousand six hundred seconds- all three of them were curled up together in the fort, protected on all sides by blankets that trapped the heat and sand that dug through the blankets like sandpaper.

It had been years. Years and years since Mai had snuck into Fumiko's bed when Gaara slept- stayed- over, years since she'd heard her crawl nwxt to Gaara on the outside of the bed, snuggle between, and whisper, The dark is scary, Nee. Ages since she had heard her call them Nee- her old way of saying 'Nii' and 'Onee' at the same time.

Instead of the middle, Mai had taken the side closest to the opening, closest to the door. A shinobi, not a little girl. It seemed like she was sleeping, sides falling in gentle rises and falls. It hadn't taken long. She hadn't slept well traveling with all the other ninja, so Fumiko wasn't really surprised.

Her back was to Gaara's, who was in turn holding her, and Fumiko held him back, tucked and tangled in the blankets. Probably when they left tomorrow, someone was going to come in here and be really confused at the state the Kazekage had left it in.

Fumiko didn't really know how much time had passed before she started to get sleepy again. Warm, held, safe...

For now. And that was the only thing making her cold still.

To distract herself she tucked her face against Gaara's collarbone. He dropped his chin slightly to accommodate, but me had to have picked up once more that something wasn't right. "What's wrong?"

"I'm scared, Gaara."

"I know."

"I don't want to die."

There were so many things he could have said then- I told you so. It's not too late to switch to the Medical Division. Stay here. You're not ready for this. So many things that probably would've made her just start crying, things that would have made them fight. And then both of them would have gone to war angry and afraid.

But Gaara said none of those things. All he said, pulling her closer as he did, in the quiet muggy night, tighter until she couldn't have pulled away if she'd had all of Mai's strength, was "I know."

...

~ Hours later, Mai found herself at the sink as her sister helped her carefully rinse the rest of the sand out of her eyes. They were red and itched a little, but otherwise she could see okay. ~

...

Her older brother and sister had fallen asleep probably a few hours before.

She herself had drifted, but hadn't been able to really grab hold of sleep. It wasn't that she couldn't, really- Gaara and her older sister were right beside her, and it was warm, and there was sand, and... it was just right. It was more like she didn't want to let it go than she wouldn't let herself sleep.

But she wanted to sleep.

I know, Gaara had said, when they thought she was sleeping.

What would that be like, having someone know you were scared?

...

~ "I'm glad Gaara found you," her older sister said. "You're okay now." ~

...

Kankuro was really damn curious about why Gaara had come into his room at three in the morning and made off with clamps, scrolls, and blankets, but he also both respected his younger brother's privacy and did not want to get involved in whatever awkward drama had woke them both up.

So he stayed in his own business, working on his puppets in the dimmed lighting, desk already infested with his old cribs' signs: oil cans, hammers, screwdrivers, wod, small hand saw, bottles of touch-absorb and blood-contact poisons.

He would probably be up all night, but it wasn't like he would be able to sleep- what if the wood cracked or warped? What if the mechanisms broke? What if the wires got tangled, or the poison seeped out, or...

No, he would just work on his puppets and make up the difference with soldier pills.

So it didn't really bother him that hours and hours passed, the darkness unchanging outside his huge window under the overcast of thunderclouds above.

But he had to admit that, used to the silence mixed with the sounds of work and crackling joints, it surprised him just a little- just a little, mind- when the door creaked open slowly and then all at once, two solid, muffled footsteps stepping over his threshold.

He flinched, and turned, and blinked.

"Mai?"

"Kankuro." She crossed her arms. He realized he had never seen her in pajamas, and honestly he would've thought she would've combusted before wearing something soft and yellow like that, but it was strange, younger, and made her seem smaller than her swagger allowed, less powerful, more... well, human. But still there were her swords. Did she sleep with those on?

"Did you, uh, need something?"

"Yeah." Mai's fingers of her left hand tapped restlessly against her right arm. "Can I use your wheel?"

His wheel. Right, his wheel for blade sharpening. He'd sealed and brought it with him, and now it was sitting near the bed, unused yet, with a short wooden stool beside it, wedged between the sharpener and the bed.

"Sure, I guess. What, couldn't sleep?"

She gave him an odd, apprehensive look. "It doesn't really seem like anyone can."

Uncrossing her arms, Mai stretched and walked over to the wheel, letting the door shut behind her, quiet despite having let it go seemingly carelessly. She pulled up the chair and sat, without a word, unbuckling her sheaths and dropping them in two pieces to pool around the stool. There was a metal sound, a vibrato of the scariest kind.

She pumped the stone wheel's lever with her foot, and slowly it began to turn. Pretty soon it was whirring away, sparks flickering off the blade in the room's dull lighting, and the sound was familiar enough for him to just shrug and go back to his work.

There were a few minutes of empty silence punctuated only by the harsh screech of the stone wheel against metal. Kankuro pulled open a drawer he'd filled with supplies the night before and pulled out another handful of brand new screws, sticking three in his mouth. The rattle of his tools was swallowed by the sharpener.

It wasn't like Mai to be so quiet, he thought absently. But then again, it wasn't like Mai to sharpen a blade that wasn't even dull.

It was probably nothing. Knowing her, she was probably just going over kenjutsu techniques in her head, psyching herself up for the coming battle. She was intense like that, So to the background noise of cutting metal, Kankuro immersed himself in his puppet arm, pulling a couple screws out of his mouth and using them to replace the older, unreliable screws Sasori had used. This was one tune-up he couldn't afford to be un-thorough with...

"... Do you think we're gonna die, Kankuro?"

He stiffened. Putting his hand with the screwdriver in it down against the desk, he turned in his chair to the sudden sound of her voice over the noise. Mai was sitting on a stool against the bed, so he could see her body language, the entire side right side of her face.

She was hunched slightly, staring intently at her sword, skillfully sliding it back and forth across the wheel. Despite the nature of this action, her eyes carefully blank but her lips white with pressure, she looked impossibly young.

It was moments like this, a not quite meek, quiet question asked out of fear and slivers of doubt- an innocent question that she had to know he couldn't have the answer to- that made him remember how old she was. Thirteen. How old he was. Eighteen, almost nineteen. They were still kids. Kami, they shouldn't have been going to war.

The screeching stopped for a moment as Mai switched out blades, first blowing on and wiping off her one before setting it to the side and picking up the second- and Kankuro realized she was still waiting for an answer. he watched silently, almost sadly but not quite, as she held the blade up to the light and put her palm against the flat, studying it.

In the ringing silence, he said, "Nah, Mai. We're not gonna die."

...

~ "Yeah. Thanks." Mai fought the urge to rub them again. "Thank you, nii." ~

...

Warmth.

It was warm enough that for a while, maybe minutes, probably more, Mai didn't open her eyes, just let herself feel nothing and think nothing and just focus on that warmth, and the position of her legs crossed over themselves, her body curled in a bent C, hands wrapped around her pillow.

When she finally brought herself to open her eyes, it was light.

Another few minutes of light before suddenly she blinked, then blinked again rapid-fire, and sat up, blanket shoving off her chest, arms levering just behind her, head and eyes whipping around from side to side.

And blinked again before recognizing Kankuro's guest room.

"What the..." she muttered, because she didn't remember falling asleep, much less crawling into a bed that wasn't even technically hers. Where was-

Oh.

Mai wiped her eyes, then swung out of bed, reaching down in a fluid, familiar motion to grab her swords in their sheaths already off the ground and slide them around her waist one at a time, buckling the straps.

And then she kind of just stood in the middle of the room like an idiot, studying the still fully-clothed mostly black lump slumped over the work desk, still strewn with puppet and sealing paper. He hadn't even bothered to wipe off his makeup before passing out, probably in the middle of something, if the tuning saw still in his fingers was anything to go by.

She glanced back at the bed, then frowned.

... Had he...?

Baka.

"Hey." No response, and she scowled before stepping up to the seat and grabbing his shoulder. "Hey, get up. I said up. It's first light."

"Whuh..."

"Get up. You should've set an alarm, Baka-Kankuro."

...

~ Gaara, beside her, put a hand on her shoulder. "Tell me if those boys bother you again," he said. "I'll take care of it." ~

...

"Well. Good morning, I guess."

Fumiko looked up from where she'd been ruffling through her bag for the finished leather projects. "Mai! Where'd you go last night?"

"Oh, you know. Places. Morning, Gaara."

"Hey, we have, like, an hour," came Kankuro's voice, and sure enough his head popped into the open space of the doorway above Mai's. "Should we wait, or make cereal?"

"You're not eating cereal the day we go to war, stupid," Mai chided. "Hey, Fumiko, I have to run back to my place anyway, and it'll only take me a minute, literally, to get ready. I'll make breakfast, you finish up."

Kankuro bristled slightly, but Fumiko smiled. "Yeah, okay! Thanks!"

The door started to close with one final nod from her younger sister, and from beyond it, Fumiko could catch the last fading tail of a conversation: "Wait, you can cook?"

"Yes, I can cook!"

Then the voices vanished, and Fumiko went back to her bag, pulling out the flak to get at the box inside.

"Gaara."

Gaara stopped on the other end of the blanket for from where he'd been getting ready, slipping on his outer flak vest. "Yes."

"I have a thing for you."

"A thing?" he asked curiously, and she popped open the box to reach inside.

Braided friendship bracelets. Sort of. Mostly they were just identical bracelets with different stones, but it was close. Woven with light and dark shades of stained leather, and interwoven dead center of the wrist was a stone each, the size of the pad of her thumb. The darker stone already held a fragment of her own chakra. The other was styill empty.

Gaara, curious still, came around the blankets to see.

"What is it?" He accidentally picked up the one that was actually for him, the one with the dark stone, and her chakra. "This feels like-"

"Me," she finished before he could. "Yeah. And this one should feel like you, once you infuse it."

His blue eyes, the same shade almost as the lighter blue-green chakra stone, lit with understanding. "For the war," he said, running his thumb over the weave. "Like we're together."

"And for the nature, if you need it."

He rubbed the ends together between his fingers, and then with one deft movement, slipped the bracelet over his right wrist and cinched it on. Fumiko of course knew the almost exact dimensions of Gaara's wrist, and so predictably it fit perfectly, loose enough to be manually moved but tight enough not to slide in a fight.

"Here," he said. "Let me do mine."

...

~ He said it so resolutely, so calmly, and Mai knew if he wanted to he could completely knock those bullies out and down without breaking a sweat. He didn't need to be rescued or saved, ever, because he was Gaara and Gaara was strong, Mai knew it and Fumiko had told her so. ~

...

Tying on a hitai-ate made a strange noise, almost like a zipper, almost as loud.

Everything was ready. Her clothes were on, they were straight, they were tight, but not too tight. Her seals were in her medical pack which was over her shoulder, there were kunai in the holster tied against her leg, her prism necklace was on, her new cool bracelet was on. The sheath was clamped to her back, staff inside, hair tied in a ponytail, glove pulled up to her elbow.

Gaara came up behind her, fingers curling around her arms. In the mirror, she could see his solemn expression.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Of course not.

Deep breath in, long breath out. Fumiko smiled at herself in the mirror and nodded, hands curling into loose fists against the wooden dresser top.

"Yeah, I'm ready."

...

~ Someday, she thought, meeping an affirmative- Someday, I wanna be strong just like you. ~

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically the first part of Naruto: Shippuden, pre-war. This is also where you can start judging my skills, because I finally learned how to write XD


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